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PETER IBBETSON 



NEW YORK AND LONDON 

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

I 900 






Copyright, 1891, by Harper & Brothers 


All rights reserved. 


486555 

AUG 1 2 1942 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, 


GKOkGK DU MAURIER FTOntispieCB. 

PAOK 

HEAD-PIECE 7 

“a strange, huge, top-heavy vehicle” 11 

LE p’tit anglais 14 

% 

LA MARE d’aUTEUIL 19 

” PRESENTEZ ARRRMES !” 23 

” WHEN IN DEATH I SHALL CALM RECLINE,” ETC 26 

” OH, NIGHTINGALE !” 28 

,‘‘SHE TOPPED MY TALL MOTHER” 33 

‘‘UNDER THE APPLE-TREE WITH THE PRINCE AND FAIRY ” ... 39 

‘‘la bataille de vaterlo” 43 

• ‘‘ GOOD OLD SLADE ” 49 

‘‘ominous birds OF yore” 64 

“settling an old score” 66 

“farewell to passy” 67 

HEAD-PIECE ^70 

A DREAM OP CHIVALRY 73 

“NOTRE DAME DE PARIS” 78 

“ PORTRAIT CHARMANT, PORTRAIT DE MON AMIE ...” 84 

“ I FELT GRATEFUL TO ADORATION ” 87 

“one of UNCLE IBBETSON’S WALTZES ” 91 

“ ’ail TO THEE BLYTHE SPERRIT !” 95 

THE DANCING LESSON . 96 

PENTONVILLE 100 

THE BIG DRAYMAN Ill 

THE BOULOGNE STEAMER 115 

“HAMPSTEAD WAS MX PASSY ” ..119 






PETER IBBETSON. 


part 3flr0t 


INTRODUCTION. 

The writer of this singular autobiography was 

my cousin, who died at the Criminal Lunatic 

Asylum, of which he had been an inmate three years. 

He had been removed thither after a sudden and 
violent attack of homicidal mania (which fortunate- 
ly led to no serious consequences), from Jail, 

where he had spent twenty-five years, having been 
condemned to penal servitude for life, for the mur- 
der of — ^ , his relative. 

He had been originally sentenced to death. 

It was at Lunatic Asylum that he wrote 

these memoirs, and I received the MS. soon after his 
decease, with the most touching letter, appealing to 
our early friendship, and appointing me his literary 
executrix. 

It was his wish that the story of his life should be 
published just as he had written it. 

I have found it unadvisable to do this. It would 
revive, to no useful purpose, an old scandal, long 
X 


2 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


buried and forgotten, and thereby give pain or an- 
noyance to people who are still alive. 

Nor does his memory require rehabilitation among 
those who knew him, or knew anything of him — 
the only people really concerned. His dreadful 
deed has long been condoned by all (and they are 
many) who knew the provocation he had received 
and the character of the man who had provoked 
him. 

On mature consideration, and with advice, I re- 
solved (in order that his dying wishes should not be 
frustrated altogether) to publish the memoir with 
certain alterations and emendations. 

I have nearly everywhere changed the names of 
people and places ; suppressed certain details, and 
omitted some passages of his life (most of the story 
of his school-days, for instance, and that of his brief 
career as a private in the Horse Guards) lest they 
should too easily lead to the identification and an- 
noyance of people still alive, for he is strongly per- 
sonal at times, and perhaps not always just ; and 
some other events I have carefully paraphrased 
(notably his trial at the Old Bailey), and given for 
them as careful an equivalent as I could manage 
without too great a loss of verisimilitude. 

I may as well state at once that, allowing for 
these alterations, every incident of his natural life 
as described by himself is absolutely true, to the 
minutest detail, as I have been able to ascertain. 

For the early part of it — the life at Passy he de- 
scribes with such affection — I can vouch personally ; 


PETER IBBETSON. 


I am the Cousin “ Madge ’’ to whom he once or twice 
refers. 

I well remember the genial abode where he lived 
With his parents (my dear uncle and aunt) ; and the 
lovely “ Madame Seraskier,” and her husband and 
daughter, and their house, “ Parva sed Apta,” and 
“Major Duquesnois,” and the rest. 

And although I have never seen him since he was 
twelve years old, when his parents died and he went 
to London (as most of my life has been spent 
abroad), I received occasional letters from him. 

I have also been able to obtain much information 
about him from others, especially from a relative of 
the late “ Mr. and Mrs. Lintot,” who knew him well, 
and from several officers in his regiment who re- 
membered him ; also from the “ Yicar’s daughter,’’ 
whom he met at “ Lady Cray’s,” and who perfectly 
recollects the conversation she had with him at din- 
ner, his sudden indisposition, and his long interview 
with the “ Duchess of Towers,” under the ash-tree 
next morning ; she was one of the croquet-players. 

He was the most beautiful boy I ever saw, and 
so charming, lively, and amiable that everybody was 
fond of him. He had a horror of cruelty, especially 
to animals (quite singular in a boy of his age), and 
was very truthful and brave. 

According to all accounts (and from a photograph 
in my possession), he grew up to be as handsome as 
a man can well be, a personal gift which he seems 
to have held of no account whatever, though he 
thought so much of it in others. But he also be- 


4 


PETER IBBETSON. 


came singularly shy and reserved in manner, over- 
diiSdent and self-distrustful ; of a melancholy dispo- 
sition, loving solitude, living much alone, and taking 
nobody into his confidence ; and yet inspiring both 
affection and respect. For he seems to have always 
been thoroughly gentlemanlike in speech, bearing, 
manner, and aspect. 

It is possible, although he does not say so, that 
having first enlisted, and then entered upon a pro- 
fessional career under some^vhat inauspicious condi- 
tions, he felt himself to have fallen away from the 
social rank (such as it was) that belonged to him by 
birth ; and he may have found his associates uncon- 
genial. 

His old letters to me are charmingly open and 
effusive. 

Of the lady whom (keeping her title and altering 
her name) I have called the ‘‘ Duchess of Towers,” 
I find it difficult to speak. That they only met 
twice, and in the way he describes, is a fact about 
which there can be no doubt. 

It is also indubitable that he received in Newgate, 
on the morning after his sentence to death, an en- 
velope containing violets, and the strange message 
he mentions. Both letter and violets are in my pos- 
session, and the words are in her handwriting; about 
that there can be no mistake. 

It is certain, moreover, that she separated from 
her husband almost immediately after my cousin’s 
trial and condemnation, and lived in comparative 
retirement from the world, as it is certain that he 


PETER IBBETSON. 


5 


went suddenly mad, twenty-five years later, in 

Jail, a few hours after her tragic death, and before 
he could possibly have heard of it by the ordinary 

channels ; and that he was sent to Asylum, 

where, after his frenzy had subsided, he remained for 
many days in a state of suicidal melancholia, until, 
to the surprise of all, he rose one morning in high 
spirits, and apparently cured of all serious symp- 
toms of insanity ; so he remained until his death. 
It was during the last year of his life that he wrote 
his autobiography, in French and English. 

There is nothing to be surprised at, taking all the 
circumstances into consideration, that even so great 
a lady, the friend of queens and empresses, the 
bearer of a high title and an illustrious name, justly 
celebrated for her beauty and charm (and her end- 
less charities), of blameless repute, and one of the 
most popular women in English society, should yet 
have conceived a very warm regard for my poor 
cousin ; indeed, it was an open secret in the family 
of “Lord Cray” that she had done so. But for 
them she would have taken the whole world into 
her confidence. 

After her death she left him what money had 
come to her from her father, which he disposed of 
for charitable ends, and an immense quantity of 
MS. in cipher — a cipher which is evidently identical 
with that he used himself in the annotations he 
put under innumerable sketches he was allowed to 
make during his long period of confinement, which 
(through her interest, and no doubt through his own 


6 


PETER IBBETSON. 


good conduct) was rendered as bearable to him as 
possible. These sketches (which are very extraordi- 
nary) and her Grace’s MS. are now in my possession. 

They constitute a mystery into which I have not 
dared to pry. 

From papers belonging to both I have been able 
to establish beyond doubt the fact (so strangely dis 
covered) of their descent from a common Fren.. 
ancestress, whose name I have but slightly modifier 
and the tradition of whom still lingers in the “ D 
partement de la Sarthe,” where she was a famom 
person a century ago ; and her violin, a valuable 
Amati, now belongs to me. 

Of the non-natural part of his story I will not say 
much. 

It is, of course, a fact that he had been absolutely 
and, to all appearance, incurably insane before he 
wrote his life. 

There seems to have been a difference of opinion 
or rather a doubt, among the authorities of the asy- 
lum as to whether he was mad after the acute but 
very violent period of his -brief attack had ended. 

Whichever may have been the case, I am at least 
convinced of this: that he was no romancer, and 
thoroughly believed in the extraordinary mental 
experience he has revealed. 

At the risk of being thought to share his mad- 
ness — if he was mad — I will conclude by saying that 
I, for one, believe him to have been sane, and to 
have told the truth all through. 

Madge Plunket. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


7 


I AM but a poor scribe, 
ill-versed in the craft 
of wielding words and 
phrases, as the culti- 
vated reader (if I 
should ever happen 
to have one) will no 
doubt very soon find 
out for himself. 

I have been for 
many years an object 
of pity and contempt 
to all who ever gave 
me a thought — to all 
but one! Yet of all that ever lived on this earth 
I have been, perhaps, the happiest and most privi- 
leged, as that reader will discover if he perseveres 
to the end. 

My outer and my inner life have been as the 
very poles — asunder ; and if, at the eleventh hour, 
I have made up my mind to give my story to the 
world, it is not in order to rehabilitate myself in 
the eyes of my fellow-men, deeply as I value their 
good opinion ; for I have always loved them and 
wished them well, and would fain express my good- 
will and win theirs, if that were possible. 

It is because the regions where I have found my 
felicity are accessible to all, and that many, better 



8 


PETER IBBETSON. 


trained and better gifted, will explore them to fai 
better purpose than I, and to the greater glory and 
benefit of mankind, when once I have given them 
the clew. Before I can do this, and in order to show 
how I came by this clew myself, I must tell, as well 
as I may, the tale of my checkered career — in tell- 
ing which, moreover, I am obeying the last behest 
of one whose lightest wish was my law. 

If I am more prolix than I need be, it must be set 
down to my want of experience in the art of liter- 
ary composition — to a natural wish I have to show 
myself neither better nor worse than I believe my- 
self to be ; to the charm, the unspeakable charm, 
that personal reminiscences have for the person 
principally concerned, and which he cannot hope to 
impart, however keenly he may feel it, without gifts 
and advantages that have been denied to me. 

And this leads me to apologize for the egotism of 
this Memoir, which is but an introduction to another 
and longer one that I hope to publish later. To 
write a story of paramount importance to mankind, 
it is true, but all about one’s outer and one’s inner 
self, to do this without seeming somewhat egotisti- 
cal, requires something akin to genius — and I am but 
a poor scribe. 


“Combien j’ai douce souvenance 
Du joli lieu de ma naissance 1” 

These quaint lines have been running in my head 
at intervals through nearly all my outer life, like an 


PETfiR IBBETSOISr. 


9 


olt-recurring burden in an endless ballad — sadly 
monotonous, alas ! the ballad, which is mine ; sweetly 
monotonous the burden, which is by Chateaubriand. 

I sometimes think that to feel the full signifi- 
cance of this refrain one must have passed one’s 
childhood in sunny France, where it was written, 
and the remainder of one’s existence in mere Lon- 
don — or worse than mere London — as has been the 
case with me. If I had spent all my life from in- 
fancy upward in Bloomsbury, or Clerkenwell, or 
Whitechapel, my early days would be shorn of 
much of their retrospective glamour as I look back 
on them in these my after-years. 

“Combien j’ai douce souvenance 1” 

It was on a beautiful June morning in a charm- 
ing French garden, where the warm, sweet atmos- 
phere was laden with the scent of lilac and syringa, 
and gay with butterflies and dragon-fiies and bum- 
blebees, that I began my conscious existence with 
the happiest day of aU my outer life. 

It is true that I had vague memories (with many 
a blank between) of a dingy house in the heart of 
London, in a long street of desolating straightness, 
that led to a dreary square and back again, and no- 
where else for me ; and then of a troubled and ex- 
citing journey that seemed of jumbled days and 
nights. I could recall the blue stage-coach with the 
four tall, thin, brown horses, so quiet and modest and 
well-behaved ; the red-coated guard and his horn ; 
the red-faced driver and his husky voice and many 


10 


PETER IBBETSON. 


capes. Then the steamer with its glistening deck, 
so beautiful and white it seemed quite a desecration 
to walk upon it — this spotlessness did not last very 
long ; and then two wooden piers with a light-house 
on each, and a quay, and blue-bloused workmen and 
red-legged little soldiers with mustaches, and bare- 
legged fisherwomen, all speaking a language that I 
knew as well as the other commoner language I had 
left behind ;* but which I had always looked upon as 
an exclusive possession of my father’s and mother’s 
and mine for the exchange of sweet confidence and 
the bewilderment of outsiders ; and here were little 
boys and girls in the street, quite common children, 
who spoke it as well and better than I did myself. 

After this came the dream of a strange, huge, top- 
heavy vehicle, that seemed like three yellow carriages 
stuck together, and a mountain of luggage at the top 
under an immense black tarpaulin, which ended in a 
hood ; and beneath the hood sat a blue-bloused man 
with a singular cap, like a concertina, and mustaches, 
who cracked a loud whip over five squealing, fussy, 
pugnacious white and gray horses, with bells on 
their necks and bushy fox-tails on their foreheads, 
and their own tails carefully tucked up behind. 

From the coupe where I sat wfith my father and 
mother I could watch them well as they led us 
through dusty roads with endless apple-trees or pop- 
lars on either side. Little barefooted urchins (whose 
papas and mammas wore wooden shoes and funny 
white nightcaps) ran after us for French half-pennies, 
which were larger than English ones, and pleasanter 


PETER IBBETSON. 


11 


to have and to hold! Up hill and down w^e went; 
over sounding wooden bridges, through roughly 
paved streets in pretty towns to large court-yards, 
where liv^e other quarrelsome steeds, gray and white, 
were waiting to take the place of the old ones — worn 
out, but quarrelling still ! 



“a strange, hu(5e, top-hkavy vehicle. ” 


sic of the bells and hoofs, the rumbling of the wheels, 
the cracking of the eternal whip, as I fidgeted from 
one familiar lap to the other in search of sleep ; and 
waking out of a doze I could see the glare of the 
red lamps on the five straining ^vhite and gray backs 
that dragged us so gallantly through the dark sum- 
mer night. 


1>ETER IBBETSON. 


IS 


Then it all became rather tiresome and intermit- 
tent and confused, till we reached at dusk next day 
a quay by a broad river ; and as we drove along it, 
under thick trees, we met other red and blue and 
green lamped five-horsed diligences starting on their 
long journey just as ours was coming to an end. 

Then I knew (because I was a well-educated little 
boy, and heard my father exclaim, “ Here’s Paris at 
last!”) that we had entered the capital of France — 
a fact that impressed me very much — so much, it 
seems, that I went to sleep for thirty-six hours at a 
stretch, and woke up to find myself in the garden I 
have mentioned, and to retain possession of that self 
without break or solution of continuity (except when 
I went to sleep again) until now. 


The happiest day in all my outer life ! 

For in an old shed full of tools and lumber at 
the end of the garden, and half-way between an 
empty fowl-house and a disused stable (each an Eden 
in itself) I found a small toy -wheel barrow — quite 
the most extraordinary, the most unheard of and un- 
dreamed of, humorously, daintily, exquisitely fasci- 
nating object I had ever come across in all my brief 
existence. 

I spent hours — enchanted hours — in wheeling 
brick-bats from the stable to the fowl-house, and 
more enchanted hours in wheeling them all back 
again, while genial French workmen, who were 
busy in and out of the house where we were to live, 


PETER IBBETSON. 


13 


stopped every now and then to ask good-natured 
questions of the “p’tit Anglais,” and commend his 
knowledge of their tongue, and his remarkable skill 
in the management of a wheelbarrow. Well I re- 
member wondering, with newly - aroused self-con- 
sciousness, at the intensity, the poignancy, the ex- 
tremity of my bliss, and looking forward with happy 
confidence to an endless succession of such hours 
in the future. 

But next morning, though the weather was as 
fine, and the wheelbarrow and the brick-bats and 
the genial workmen were there, and all the scents 
and sights and sounds were the same, the first fine 
careless rapture was not to be caught again, and the 
glory and the freshness had departed. 

Thus did I, on the very dawning of fife, reach at 
a single tide the high -water- mark of my earthly 
bliss — never to be reached again by me on this side 
of the ivory gate — and discover that to make the 
perfection of human happiness endure there must 
be something more than a sweet French garden, a 
small French wheelbarrow, and a nice little English 
boy who spoke French and had the love of appro- 
bation — a fourth dimension is required. 

I found it in due time. 

But if there were no more enchanted hours like the 
first, there were to be seven happy years that have 
the quality of enchantment as I look back on them. 


Oh, the beautiful garden! Koses, nasturtiums 


14 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


and convolvulus, wallflowers, sweet-pease and carna- 
tions, marigolds and sunflowers, dahlias and pansies 
and hollyhocks and poppies, and Heaven knows 
what besides ! In my fond recollection they all 
bloom at once, irrespective of 
time and season. 

To see and smell and pick all 
these for the first time at the 
susceptible age of five ! To in- 










47 - 







LU P'TIT AKOLAIS. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


15 


herit such a kingdom after five years of Gower 
Street and Bedford Square ! For all things are rela- 
tive, and everything depends upon the point of view. 
To the owner of Chatsworth (and to his gardeners) 
my beautiful French garden would have seemed a 
small affair. 

And what a world of insects — Chatsworth could 
not beat these (indeed, is no doubt sadly lacking in 
them) — beautiful, interesting, comic, grotesque, and 
terrible ; from the proud humble-bee to the earwig 
and his cousin, the devil’s coach-horse ; and all those 
rampant, many footed things that pullulate in damp 
and darkness under big flat stones. To think that 
I have been friends with all these — roses and centi- 
pedes and all — and then to think that most of my 
outer life has been spent between bare whitewashed 
walls, with never even a flea or a spider to be friends 
with again ! 

Our house (where, by- the- way, I had been born 
five years before), an old yellow house with green 
shutters and Mansard-roofs of slate, stood between 
this garden and the street — a long winding street, 
roughly flagged, with oil-lamps suspended across at 
long intervals ; these lamps were let down with pul- 
leys at dusk, replenished and lit, and then hauled 
up again to make darkness visible for a few hours 
on nights when the moon was away. 

Opposite to us was a boys’ school — “Maison d’fidu- 
cation, Dirigee par M. Jules Saindou, Bachelier et 
Maitre es Lettres et es Sciences,” and author of a 
treatise on geology, with such hauntingly terrific 


16 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


pictures of antediluvian reptiles battling in the pri- 
meval slime that I have never been able to forget 
them. My father, who was fond of science, made 
me a present of it on my sixth birthday. It cost 
me many a nightmare. 

From our windows we could see and hear the boys 
at play — at a proper distance French boys sound 
just like English ones, though they do not look so, 
on account of their blue blouses and dusky, cropped 
heads — and we could see the gymnastic fixtures in 
the play-ground, M. Saindou’s pride. Le portique ! 
la poutre ! ! le cheval ! ! ! et les barres paralleles ! ! ! !” 
Thus they were described in M. Saindou’s prospectus. 

On either side of the street (which was called 

the Street of the Pump ”), as far as eye could reach 
looking west, were dwelling-houses just like our 
OAvn, only agreeably different; and garden walls 
overtopped with the foliage of horse-chestnut, syca- 
more, acacia, and lime ; and here and there huge 
portals and iron gates defended by posts of stone 
gave ingress to mysterious abodes of brick and plas- 
ter and granite, many-shuttered, and embosomed in 
sun-shot greenery. 

Looking east one could see in the near distance 
unsophisticated shops with old-fashioned windows 
of many panes — Liard, the grocer; Corbin, the 
poulterer; the butcher, the baker, the candlestick- 
maker. 

And this delightful street, as it went on its wind- 
ing way, led not to Bedford Square or the new Uni- 
versity College Hospital, but to Paris through the 


PETER IBBETSON. 


17 


Arc de Triomphe at one end, and to the river Seine 
at the other; or else, turning to the right, to St. 
Cloud through the Bois de Boulogne of Louis Phil- 
ippe Premier, Koi des Frangais— as different from 
the Paris and the Bois de Boulogne of to-day as a 
diligence from an express train. 

On one side of the beautiful garden was another 
beautiful garden, separated from ours by a high wall 
covered with peach and pear and plum and apricot 
trees ; on the other, accessible to us through a small 
door in another lower wall clothed with jasmine, 
clematis, convolvulus, and nasturtium, was a long, 
straight avenue of almond -trees, acacia, laburnum, 
lilac, and may, so closely planted that the ivy-grown 
walls on either side could scarcely be seen. What 
lovely patches they made on the ground when the 
sun shone ! One end of this abutted on “ the Street 
of the Pump,” from which it was fenced by tall, 
elaborately- carved iron gates between stone portals, 
and at the side was a “ porte batarde,” guarded by 
le Pere et la Mere Francois, the old concierge and 
his old wife. Peace to their ashes, and Heaven rest 
their kindly, genial souls ! 

The other end of the avenue, where there was also 
an iron gate, admitted to a large private park that 
seemed to belong to nobody, and of which we were 
free — a very wilderness of delight, a heaven, a terror 
of tangled thickets and not too dangerous chalk 
cliffs, disused old quarries and dark caverns, prairies 
of lush grass, sedgy pools, turnip fields, forests of 
pine, groves and avenues of horse-chestnut, dank 
2 


18 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


valleys of walnut-trees and hawthorn, which sum^ 
mer made dark at noon ; bare, wind-swept mount- 
ainous regions whence one could reconnoitre afar ; 
all sorts of wild and fearsome places for savages 
and wild beasts to hide and small boys to roam 
quite safely in quest of perilous adventure. 

All this vast enclosure (full of strange singing, 
humming, whistling, buzzing, twittering, cooing, 
booming, croaking, flying, creeping, crawling, jump- 
ing, climbing, burrowing, splashing, diving things) 
had been neglected for ages — an Eden vrhere one 
might gather and eat of the fruit of the tree of 
knowledge without fear, and learn lovingly the ways 
of life without losing one’s innocence ; a forest that 
had remade for itself a new virginity, and become 
primeval once more; where beautiful Nature had 
reasserted her own sweet will, and massed and tan- 
gled everything together as though a Beauty had 
been sleeping there undisturbed for close on a hun- 
dred years, and was only waiting for the charming 
Prince — or, as it turned out a few years later, alas ! 
the speculative builder and the railway engineer — 
those princes of our day. 

My fond remembrance would tell me that this 
region was almost boundless, well as I remember its 
boundaries. My knowledge of physical geography, 
as applied to this particular suburb of Paris, bids 
me assign more modest limits to this earthly para- 
dise, which again was separated by an easily sur- 
mounted fence from Louis Philippe’s Bois de Bou- 
logne ; and to this I cannot find it in my heart to 








20 


PETER IBBETSO-t^. 


assign any limits whatever, except the pretty old 
town from which it takes its name, and whose prin- 
cipal street leads to that magical combination of 
river, bridge, palace, gardens, mountain, and forest, 
St. Cloud. 

What more could be wanted for a small boy fresh 
(if such be freshness) from the very heart of Blooms- 
bury ? 

That not a single drop should be lacking to the 
full cup of that small boy’s felicity, there was a 
pond on the way from Passy to St. Cloud — sl mem- 
orable pond, called “ La Mare d’Auteuil,” the sole 
aquatic treasure that Louis Philippe’s Bois de Bou- 
logne could boast. For in those ingenuous days 
there existed no artificial lake fed by an artificial 
stream, no pre-Catelan, no Jardin d’Acclimatation. 
The wood was just a wood, and nothing more — a 
dense, wild wood, that covered many hundreds of 
acres, and sheltered many thousands of wild live 
things. Though mysteriously deep in the middle, 
this famous pond (which may have been centuries 
old, and still exists) was not large ; you might al- 
most fling a stone across it anywhere. 

Bounded on three sides by the forest (now shorn 
away), it was just hidden from the dusty road by a 
fringe of trees ; and one could have it all to one’s 
self, except on Sunday and Thursday afternoons, 
when a few love-sick Parisians remembered its ex- 
istence, and in its loveliness forgot their own. 

To be there at all was to be happy ; for not only 
was it quite the most secluded, picturesque, and 


PETER IBBETSON. 


21 


beautiful pond in all the habitable globe — that pond 
of ponds, the only pond — but it teemed with a far 
greater number and variety of wonderful insects 
and reptiles than any other pond in the world. 
Such, at least, I believed must be the case, for they 
were endless. 

To watch these creatures, to learn their ways, to 
catch them (which we sometimes did), to take them 
home and be kind to them, and. try to tame them, and 
teach them our ways (with never varying non-success, 
it is true, but in, oh, such jolly company!) became a 
hobby that lasted me, on and off, for seven years. 

La Mare d’Auteuil 1 The very name has a magic, 
from all the associations that gathered round it dur- 
ing that time, to cling forever. 

How I loved it ! At night, snoozing in my warm 
bed, I would awesomely think of it, and how solemn 
it looked when I had reluctantly left it at dusk, an 
hour or two before ; then I would picture it to my- 
self, later, lying deep and cold and still under the 
stars, in the dark thicket, with all that weird, un- 
canny life seething beneath its stagnant surface. 

Then gradually the water would sink, and the 
reeds, left naked, begin to move and rustle ominous- 
ly, and from among their roots in the uncovered 
slush everything alive would make for the middle 
— hopping, gliding, writhing frantically. . . . 

Down shrank the water ; and soon in the slimy 
bottom, yards below, huge fat salamanders, long- 
lost and forgotten tadpoles as large as rats, gigan- 
tic toads, enormous flat beetles, all kinds of hairy, 


22 


PETER IBBETSON. 


scaly, spiny, blear-eyed, bulbous, shapeless monsters 
without name, mud -colored offspring of the mire 
that had been sleeping there for hundreds of years, 
woke up, and crawled in and out, and wallowed and 
interwriggled, and devoured each other, like the 
great saurians and batrachians in my Manuel de 
Geologie Elementaire. Edition illustree a I’usage 
des enfants. Par Jules Saindou, Bachelier et Mai- 
tre es Lettres et es Sciences. 

Then would I wake up with a start, in a cold 
perspiration, an icy chill shooting through me that 
roughed my skin and stirred the roots of my hair, 
and ardently wish for to-morrow morning. 

In after-years, and far away among the cold fogs 
of Clerkenwell, when the frequent longing would 
come over me to revisit ‘Hhe pretty place of my 
birth,” it was for the Mare d’Auteuil I longed the 
most ; that was the loadstar, the very pole of my 
home-sick desires ; always thither the wings of my 
hopeless fancy bore me first of all ; it was, oh ! to 
tread that sunlit grassy brink once more, and to 
watch the merry tadpoles swarm, and the green 
frog take its header like a little man, and the water- 
rat swim to his hole among the roots of the willow, 
and the horse-leech thread his undulating way be- 
tween the water-lily stems ;• and to dream fondly of 
the delightful, irrevocable past, on the very spot of 
all where I and mine were always happiest ! 

“ . . . . Qii’ils §taient beaux, les jours 
De France!” 




24 


PETER IBBETSOK. 


In the avenue I have mentioned {fhe avenue, as it 
is still to me, and as I will always call it) there was 
on the right hand, half the way up, a maison de 
sante, or boarding-house, kept by one Madame Pele ; 
and there among others came to board and lodge, a 
short while after our advent, four or five gentlemen 
who had tried to invade France, with a certain grim 
Pretender at their head, and a tame eagle as a sym- 
bol of empire to rally round. 

The expedition had failed; the Pretender had 
been consigned to a fortress ; the eagle had found 
a home in the public slaughter-house of Boulogne- 
sur-Mer, which it adorned for many years, and 
where it fed as it had never probably fed before ; 
and these, the faithful followers, le Colonel Yoisil, 
le Major Duquesnois, le Capitaine Audenis, le Doc- 
teur Lombal (and one or, two others whose names 
I have forgotten), were prisoners on parole at Ma- 
dame Pole’s, and did not seem to find their durance 
very vile. 

I grew to know and love them all, especially the 
Major Duquesnois, an almost literal translation into 
French of Colonel Newcome. He took to me at 
once, in spite of my Englishness, and drilled me, 
and taught me the exercise as it was performed in 
the Yieille Garde; and told me a new fairy-tale, 
I verily believe, every afternoon for seven years. 
Scheherezade could do no more for a Sultan, and to 
save her own neck from the bowstring! 

Cher et bien aime “ Yieux de la Yieille !” with his 
big iron -gray mustache, his black satin stock, his 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


25 


spotless linen, his long green frock-coat so baggy 
about the skirts, and the smart red ribbon in his 
button -hole! He little foresaw with what warm 
and affectionate regard his memory would be kept 
forever sweet and green in the heart of his heredi- 
tary foe and small English tyrant and companion 1 


Opposite Madame Pele’s, and the only other 
dwelling besides hers and ours in the avenue, was 
a charming little white villa with a Grecian porti- 
co, on which were inscribed in letters of gold the 
words “ Parva sed Apta but it was not tenanted 
till two or three years after our arrival. 

In the genial French fashion of those times we 
soon got on terms of intimacy with these and other 
neighbors, and saw much of each other at all times 
of the day. 

My tall and beautiful young mother (la belle 
Madame Pasquier, as she was gallantly called) was 
an Englishwoman who had been born and partly 
brought up in Paris. 

My gay and jovial father (le beau Pasquier, for he 
was also tall and comely to the eye) was a French- 
man, although an English subject, who had been 
born and partly brought up in London ; for he was 
the child of emigres from France during the Keign 
of Terror. 

He was gifted with a magnificent, a phenomenal 
voice — a barytone and tenor rolled into one ; a mar- 
vel of richness, sweetness, flexibility, and power— 


26 


PETER IBBETSON. 


and had intended to sing at the opera; 
indeed, he had studied for three years 
at the Paris Conservatoire to that end ; 
and there he had carried all before him, 
and given rise to the highest hopes. But 
his family, who 
were Catholics 
of the blackest 
and Legitimists 
of the whitest 
dye — and as 
poor as church 
rats — had ob- 
jected to such a 
godless and de- 
rogatory career; 
so the world lost 
a great singer, 
and the great 
singer a mine of 
wealth and fame. 

However, he 
had just enough 
to live upon, and 
had married a 
wife (a heretic !) 
w"ho had just 
about as much, 
or as little ; and 

“When in death I ahall calm recline, _ ^ . 

Oh take my heart to my mistress dear I he Spent hlS time, 

fell her it lived upon smiles and wine "U 4. U 1 ' 

Of the brightest hue while it lingered here I’’ a n Cl b 0 1 h ll 1 S 



PETER IBBET80N. 


27 


money and hers, in scientific inventions — to little 
purpose, for well as he had learned how to sing, 
he had not been to any conservatoire w^here they 
teach one how to invent. 

So that, as he waited ‘‘for his ship to come 
home,” he sang only to amuse his wife, as they say 
the nightingale does ; and to ease himself of super- 
fluous energy, and to charm the servants, and le 
Pere et la M5re Francois, and the flve followers of 
I^apoleon, and all and everybody who cared to lis- 
ten, and last and least (and most !), myself. 

For this great neglected gift of his, on which he 
set so little store, was already to me the most beau- 
tiful and mysterious thing in the world ; and next 
to this, my mother’s sweet playing on the harp and 
piano, for she was an admirable musician. 

It was her custom to play at night, leaving the 
door of my bedroom ajar, and also the drawing- 
room door, so that I could hear her till I fell asleep. 

Sometimes, when my father was at home, the 
spirit would move him to hum or sing the airs she 
played, as he paced up and down the room on the 
track of a new invention. 

And though he sang and hummed “ pian-piano,” 
the sweet, searching, manly tones seemed to fill all 
space. 

The hushed house became a sounding-board, the 
harp a mere subservient tinkle, and my small, ex- 
citable frame would thrill and vibrate under the 
waves of my unconscious father’s voice ; and oh, the 
charming airs he sang ! 


28 


PETER IBBETSON. 


His stock was inexhaustible, and so was hers ; and 
thus an endless succession of lovely melodies went 
ringing through that happy period. 

And just as when a man is drowning, or falling 
from a height, his whole past life is said to be 

mapped out before his 
mental vision as in a 
single flash, so seven 
years of sweet, price- 
less home love — seven 
times four changing 
se-asons of simple, 
genial, prsB-imperial 
Frenchness; an ideal 



“ on, NIGHTINGALE !” 


house, with all its prett}^ furniture, and shape, and 
color ; a garden full of trees and flowers ; a large 
park, and all the wild live things therein ; a town 


PETER IBBETSON. 


29 


and its inhabitants ; a mile or two of historic river ; 
a wood big enough to reach from the Arc de Tri- 
omphe to St. Cloud (and in it the pond of ponds) ; 
and every wind and weather that the changing sea- 
sons can bring — all lies embedded and embalmed 
for me in every single bar of at least a hundred 
different tunes, to be evoked at will for the small 
trouble and cost of just whistling or humming the 
same, or even playing it with one finger on the piano 
— when I had a piano within reach. 

Enough to last me for a lifetime — with proper 
economy, of course — it will not do to exhaust, by 
too frequent experiment, the strange capacity of a 
melodic bar for preserving the essence of by -gone 
things, and days that are no more. 

Oh, Nightingale! whether thou singest thyself, 
or, better still, if thy voice be not in thy throat, but 
in thy fiery heart and subtle brain, and thou makest 
songs for the singing of many others, blessed be thy 
name I The very sound of it is sweet in every clime 
and tongue: Nightingale, Rossignol, Usignuolo, Bul- 
bul ! Even Nachtigall does not sound amiss in the 
mouth of a fair English girl who has had a Hano- 
verian for a governess! and, indeed, it is in the 
NachtigalFs country that the best music is made ! 

And oh. Nightingale! never, never grudge thy 
song to those who love it — nor waste it upon those 
who do not. . . . 

Thus serenaded, I would close my eyes, and 
lapped in darkness and warmth and heavenly 
sound, be lulled asleep — perchance to dream! 


30 


PETER IBBETSON. 


For my early childhood was often haunted by a 
dream, which at first I took for a reality — a tran- 
scendant dream of some interest and importance to 
mankind, as the patient reader will admit in time. 
But many years of my life passed away before I 
was able to explain and account for it. 

I had but to turn my face to the wall, and soon I 
found myself in company with a lady who had white 
hair and a young face — a very beautiful young face. 

Sometimes I walked with her, hand in hand — I 
being quite a small child — and together we fed in- 
numerable pigeons who lived in a tower by a wind- 
ing stream that ended in a water-mill. It was too 
lovely, and I would wake. 

Sometimes we went into a dark place, where there 
was a fiery furnace with many holes, and many 
people working and moving about — among them a 
man with white hair and a young face, like the lady, 
and beautiful red heels to his shoes. And under his 
guidance I would contrive to make in the furnace 
a charming little cocked hat of colored glass — a 
treasure ! And the sheer joy thereof would wake 
me. 

Sometimes the white-haired lady and I would sit 
together at a square box from which she made love- 
ly music, and she would sing my favorite song — a 
song that I adored. But I always woke before this 
song came to an end, on account of the too insup- 
portably intense bliss I felt on hearing it ; and all I 
could remember when awake were the words ‘‘ triste 
— comment — sale,” 


PETER IBBETSON. 


31 


The air, which I knew so well in my dream, I 
conld not recall. 

It seemed as though some innermost core of my 
being, some childish holy of holies, secreted a source 
of supersubtie reminiscence, which, under some stim- 
ulus that now aud again became active during sleep, 
exhaled itself in this singular dream — shadowy and 
slight, but invariably accompanied by a sense of fe- 
licity so measureless and so penetrating that I would 
always wake in a mystic flutter of ecstasy, the bare 
remembrance of which was enough to bless and 
make happy many a succeeding hour. 


Besides this happy family of three, close by (in 
the Street of the Tower) lived my grandmother 
Mrs. B»ddulph, and my Aunt Plunket, a widow, 
with her two sons, Alfred and Charlie, and her 
daughter Madge. They also were fair to look at — 
extremely so — of the gold-haired, white -skinned, 
well -grown Anglo-Saxon type, with frank, open, 
jolly manners, and no beastly British pride. 

So that physically, at least, we reflected much 
credit on the English name, which was not in good 
odor j^ist then at Passy-les-Paris, where Waterloo 
was unforgotten. In time, however, our nationality 
Avas condoned on account of our good looks — “ non 
Angli sed angeli!” as M. Saindou was gallantly 
pleased to exclaim when he called (with a pros- 
pectus of his school) and found us all gathered to- 
gether under the big apple-tree on our lawn. 


32 


PETER IBBETSON. 


But English beauty in Passy was soon to receive 
a memorable addition to its ranks -in the person of 
a certain Madame Seraskier, who came with an in- 
valid little daughter to live in the house so mod- 
estly described in gold as Parva sed Apta.” 

She was the English, or rather the Irish, wife of a 
Hungarian patriot and man of science. Dr. Seras- 
kier (son of the famous violinist) ; an extremely tall, 
thin man, almost gigantic, with a grave, benevolent 
face, and a head like a prophet’s ; who was, like my 
father, very much away from his family — conspiring 
perhaps — or perhaps only inventing (like my father), 
and looking out “ for his ship to come home !” 

This fair lady’s advent was a sensation — to me a 
sensation that never palled or wore itself aAvay ; it 
was no longer now la belle Madame Pasquier,” but 
“ la divine Madame Seraskier ’’.—beauty -blind as the 
French are apt to be. 

She topped my tall mother by more than half a 
head; as was remarked by Madame Pele, whose 
similes were all of the kitchen and dining-room, elle 
lui mangerait des petits pates sur la tete!” And 
height, that lends dignity to ugliness, magnifies 
beauty on a scale of geometrical progression — 2, 4, 
8, 16, 32 — for every consecutive inch, between five 
feet five, let us say, and five feet ten or eleven (or 
thereabouts), which I take to have been Madame 
Seraskier’s measurement. 

She had black hair and blue eyes — of the kind 
that turns violet in a novel — and a beautiful white 
skin, lovely hands and feet, a perfect figure, and 


PETER IBBETSON. 


33 


features chiselled and 
finished and polished 
and turned out with 
such singular felicitous- 
ness that one gazed and 
gazed till the heart was 
full of a strange jealous 
resentment at any one 
else having the right to 
gaze on something so 
rare, so divinely, so sa- 
credly fair — any one in 
the world but one’s self ! 

But a woman can be 
all this without being 
Madame Seraskier — she 
was much more. 

For the warmth and 
genial kindness of her 
nature shone through 
her eyes and rang in 
her voice. All was of 
a piece with her — her 
simplicity, her grace, 

her naturalness and absence of vanity ; her courtesy, 
her sympathy, her mirthfulness. 

I do not know which was the most irresistible : 
she had a slight Irish accent when she spoke Eng- 
lish, a less slight English accent when she spoke 
French ! 

I made it my business to acquire both. 



“SHE TOPPED MY TALL MOTHER.” 


34 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Indeed, she was in heart and mind and body what 
we should all be but for the lack of a little public 
spirit and self-denial (under proper guidance) during 
the last few hundred years on the part of a few 
thousand millions of our improvident fellow-creat- 
ures. 

There should be no available ugly frames for 
beautiful souls to be hurried into by carelessness or 
mistake, and no ugly souls should be suffered to 
creep, like hermit-crabs, into beautiful shells never 
intended for them. The outward and visible form 
should mark the inward and spiritual grace ; that it 
seldom does so is a fact there is no gainsajdng. 
Alas! such beauty is such an exception that its 
possessor, like a prince of the blood royal, is pam- 
pered and spoiled from the very cradle, and every 
good and generous and unselfish impulse is corroded 
by adulation — that spontaneous tribute so lightly 
won, so quickly paid, and accepted so royally as a 
due. 

So that only when by Heaven’s grace the very 
beautiful are also very good, is it time for us 
to go down on our knees, and say our prayers in 
thankfulness and adoration ; for the divine has 
been permitted to make itself manifest for a 
while in the perishable likeness of our poor hu- 
manity. 

A beautiful face ! a beautiful tune ! Earth holds 
nothing to beat these, and of such, for want of bet- 
ter materials, we have built for ourselves the king- 
dom of Heaven. 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


3S 


**Plus oblige, et peut davantage 
Un beau visage 
Qu’un homme arme — 

Et rien n’est meilleur que d’entendre 
Air doux et tendre 
Jadis aime!” 

Mj mother soon became the passionately devoted 
friend of the divine Madame Seraskier ; and I, what 
would I not have done — what danger would I not 
have faced — what death Would I not have died for 
her! 

I did not die; I lived her protestant to be, for 
nearly fifty years. For nearly fifty years to recol- 
lect the rapture and the pain it was to look at her ; 
that inexplicable longing ache, that dumb, delicious, 
complex, innocent distress, for which none but the 
greatest poets have ever found expression ; and 
which, perhaps, they have not felt half so acutely, 
these glib and gifted ones, as /did, at the susceptible 
age of seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve. 

She had other slaves of my sex. The five ^N’a- 
poleonic heroes did homage each after his fashion : 
the good Major with a kind of sweet fatherly ten- 
derness touching to behold ; the others with perhaps 
less unselfish adoration ; notably the brave Capi- 
taine Audenis, of the fair waxed mustache and beau- 
tiful brown tail coat, so tightly buttoned with gilt 
buttons across his enormous chest, and imperceptible 
little feet so tightly imprisoned in shiny tipped 
female cloth boots, with buttons of mother-of-pearl ; 
ivhose hobby was, I believe, to try and compensate 


36 


PETER IBBETSON. 


himself for the misfortunes of war by more success- 
ful attempts in another direction. Anyhow he be- 
trayed a warmth that made my small bosom a 
Gehenna, until she laughed and snubbed him into 
due propriety and shamefaced self-effacement. 

It soon became evident that she favoured two, at 
least, out of all this little masculine world — the 
Major and myself ; and a strange trio we made. 

Her poor little daughter, the object of her pas- 
sionate solicitude, a very clever and precocious child, 
was the reverse of beautiful, although she would 
have had fine eyes but for her red lashless lids. She 
wore her thick hair cropped short, like a boy, and 
was pasty and sallow in complexion, hollow-cheeked, 
thick-featured, and overgrown, with long thin hands 
and feet, and arms and legs of quite pathetic length 
and tenuity ; a silent and melancholy little girl, who 
sucked her thumb perpetually, and kept her own 
counsel. She would have to lie in bed for days to- 
gether, and when she got well enough to sit up, 1 
(to please her mother) would read to her Le Robin- 
son Suisse^ Sandford and Merton^ Evenings at Ilome^ 
Les Contes de Madame Perrault^ the shipwreck 
from “ Don Juan,” of which we never tired, and the 
“ Giaour,” the Corsair,” and ‘‘ Mazeppa ;” and last, 
but not least, Peter Parley's Natural History^ which 
we got to know by heart. 

And out of this latter volume I would often de- 
claim for her benefit what has always been to me 
the most beautiful poem in the world, possibly be- 
cause it was the first I read for myself, or else 


PETER IBBETSON. 


37 


because it is so intimately associated with those 
happy days. Under an engraving of a wild duck 
(after Bewick, I believe) were quoted W. C. Bryant’s 
lines ‘‘To a Water-fowl.” They charmed me then 
and charm me now as nothing else has quite charmed 
me ; I become a child again as I think of them, with 
a child’s virgin subtlety of perception and magical 
susceptibility to vague suggestions of the Infinite. 

Poor little Mimsey Seraskier would listen with 
distended eyes and quick comprehension. She had 
a strange fancy that a pair of invisible beings, “ La 
fee Tarapatapoum,” and “Le Prince Charmant” 
(two favorite characters of M. le Major’s) were al- 
ways in attendance upon us — upon her and me — 
and were equally fond of us both ; that is, “ La fee 
Tarapatapoum ” of me, and “ Le Prince Charmant ” 
of her — and watched over us and would protect us 
through life. 

“ O ! ils sont joliment bien ensemble, tons les deux 
— ils sont inseparables!” she would often exclaim, 
ajpropos of these visionary beings ; and apropos of 
the water-fowl she would say — 

“ II aime beaucoup cet oiseau-la, le Prince Char- 
mant ! dis encore, quand il vole si haut, et qu’il fait 
froid, et qu’il est fatigue, et que la nuit vient, mais 
qu’il ne veut pas descendre 1” 

And I would re-spout — 

“ ‘All day thy wings have fanned, 

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 

Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land. 

Though the dark night be near !’ ” 


PETER IBBETSON. 


And poor, morbid, precocious, overwrought Mim- 
sey’s eyes would fill, and she would meditatively 
suck her thumb and think unutterable things. 

And then I would copy Bewick’s wood-cuts for 
hv p, as she sat on the arm of my chair and patiently 
watched ; and she would say : La fee Tarapata- 
poum trouve que tu dessines dans la perfection!” 
and treasure up these little masterpieces — “pour 
I’album de la fee Tarapatapoum 1” 

There was one drawing she prized above all oth^ 
ers — a steel engraving in a volume of Byron, whicl 
represented two beautiful beings of either sex. 
walking hand in hand through a dark cavern. Th 
man was in sailor’s garb ; the lady, who went bare- 
foot and lightly clad, held a torch ; and underneath 
was written — 

** And Neuha led her Torquil by the hand, 

And waved along the vaults her flaming brand.” 

I spent hours in copying it for her, and she pre- 
ferred the copy to the original, and would have it 
that the two figures were excellent portraits of her 
Prince and Fairy. 

Sometimes during these readings and sketchings 
under the apple-tree on the lawn, the sleeping Medor 
(a huge nondescript sort of dog, built up of every 
breed in France, with the virtues of all and the vices 
of none) would wag his three inches of tail, and ut- 
ter soft whimperings of welcome in his dream ; and 
she would say — ■ 







40 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


‘^C’est le Prince Charmant qui lui dit; ‘Medor, 
donne la patte V ” 

Or our old tomcat would rise from his slumbers 
with his tail up, and rub an imaginary skirt ; and it 
was — 

“Kegarde Mistigris! La fee Tarapatapoum est 
en train de lui frotter les oreilles !” 

We mostly spoke French, in spite of strict injunc- 
tions to the contrary from our fathers and mothers, 
who were much concerned lest we should forget our 
English altogether. 

In time we made a kind of ingenious compromise ; 
for Mimsey, who was full of resource, invented a 
new language, or rather two, which we called 
Frankingle and Inglefrank, respectively. They con- 
sisted in anglicizing French nouns and verbs and 
then conjugating and pronouncing them Englishly, 
or vice versa. 

For instance, it was very cold, and the school-room 
window was open, so she Avould say in Frankingle — 

“Dispeach yourself to ferm the feneeter, Gogo. 
It geals to pier-fend ! we shall be inrhumed !” or 
else, if I failed to immediately understand — “ Gogo, 
il frise a splitter les stonnes — maque aste et chute 
le vindeau; mais chute — le done vite! Je snize 
d6ja !” which was Inglefrank. 

With this contrivance we managed to puzzle and 
mystify the uninitiated, English and French alike. 
The intelligent reader, who sees it all in print, Avill 
not be so easil}^ taken in. 

When Mimsey was well enough, she would come 


PETER IBBETSON. 


41 


with my cousins and me into the park, where we 
always had a good time — lying in ambush for red 
Indians, rescuing Madge Flunket from a caitiff 
knight, or else hunting snakes and field-mice and 
lizards, and digging for lizard’s eggs, which we 
would hatch at home — that happy refuge for all 
manner of beasts, as well as little boys and girls. 
For there were squirrels, hedgehogs, and guinea- 
pigs ; an owl, a raven, a monkey, and white mice ; 
little birds that liad strayed from the maternal nest 
before they could fly (they always died !), the dog 
Medor, and any other dog who chose ; not to men- 
tion a gigantic rocking-horse made out of a real 
stuffed pony — the smallest pony that had ever been ! 

Often our united high spirits were too boisterous 
for Mimsey. Dreadful headaches would come on, 
and she would sit in a corner, nursing a hedgehog 
with one arm and holding her thumb in her mouth 
with the other. Only when we were alone together 
was she happy ; and then, moult tristement ! 

On summer evenings whole parties of us, grown- 
up and small, would walk through the park and the 
Bois de Boulogne to the “ Mare d’Auteuil as we 
got near enough for Medor to scent the water, he 
would bark and grin and gyrate, and go mad with 
excitement, for he had the gift of diving after stones, 
and liked to show it off. 

There we would catch huge olive-colored water- 
beetles, yellow underneath ; red-bellied newts ; green 
frogs, with beautiful spots and a splendid parabolic 
leap ; gold and silver fish, pied with purply brown. 


4 ^ 


t»ETEK IBBETSON. 


I mention them in the order of their attractiveness. 
The fish were loo tame and easily caught, and their 
beauty of too civilized an order ; the rare, flat, vicious 
dytiscus “ tool; the cake.” 

Sometimes, even, we would walk through Bou- 
logne to St. Cloud, to see the new railway and the 
trains — an inexhaustible subject of wonder and de- 
light — and eat ices at the “Tete hl'oire” (a hotel 
which had been the scene of a terrible murder, that 
led to a cause celebre) ; and we would come back 
through the scented night, while the glowworms 
were shining in the grass, and the distant frogs were 
croaking in the Mare d’Auteuil. Now and then ? 
startled roebuck would gallop in short bounds acro^ 
the path, from thicket to thicket, and Medor would g 
mad again, and wake the echoes of the new Paris for 
tifications, which were still in course of construction 
He had not the gift of catching roebucks ! 

If my father were of the party, he would yodo 
Tyrolese melodies, and sing lovely songs of Boieldieu, 
Herold, and Gretry; or “Drink to me only with 
thine eyes,” or else the “ Bay of Dublin” for Madame 
Seraskier, who had the nostalgia of her beloved coun- 
try whenever her beloved husband was away. 

Or else we would break out into a jolly chorus 
and march to the tune — 

“ Marie, trempe ton pain, 

Marie, trempe ton pain, 

Marie, trempe ton pain dans la soupe* 

Marie, trempe ton pain, 

Marie, trempe ton pain, 

Marie, trempe ton pain dans le vin 1” 




44 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Or else — 

** La— soupe aux choux— se fait dans la marmite ; 

Dans — la marmite — se fait la soupe aux choux/' 

which would give us all the nostalgia of supper ! 

Or else, again, if it were too hot to sing, or we 
were too tired, M. le Major, forsaking the realms of 
fairy-land, and uncovering his high bald head as he 
walked, would gravely and reverently tell us of his 
great master, of Brienne, of Marengo, and Austerlitz ; 
of the farewells at Fontainebleau, and the Hundred 
Days — never of St. Helena ; he would not trust him- 
self to speak to us of that 1 And gradually working 
his way to Waterloo, he would put his hat on, and 
demonstrate to us, by A -f B, how, virtually, . the 
English had lost the day, and why and wherefore. 
And on all the little party a solemn, awe-struck still- 
ness would fall as we listened, and on some of us the 
sweet nostalgia of bed ! 

Oh, the good old time ! 

The night was consecrated for me by the gleam 
and scent and rustle of Madame Seraskier’s gown, 
as I walked by her side in the deepening dusk — a 
gleam of yellow, or pale blue, or white — a scent of 
sandal -wood — a rustle that told of a light, vigorous 
tread on firm, narrow, high -arched feet, that were 
not easily tired ; of an anxious, motherly wish to get 
back to Mimsey, who was not strong enough for 
these longer expeditions. 

On the shorter ones I used sometimes to carry 
Mimsey on my back most of the way home (to please 


PETER IBBETSON. 


45 


her mother) — a frail burden, with her poor, long, thin 
arms round my neck, and her pale, cold cheek against 
my ear — she weighed nothing! And when I was 
tired M. le Major would relieve me, but not for long. 
She always wanted to be carried by Gogo (for so 1 
was called, for no reason whatever, unless it was that 
my name was Peter). 

She would start at the pale birches that shone out 
against the gloom, and shiver if a bough scraped her, 
and tell me all about the Erl-king — “ mais comme ils 
sont la tous les deux ” (meaning the Prince and the 
Fairy) “ il n’y a absolument rien a craindre.” 

And Mimsey was si honne camarade^ in spite of 
her solemnity and poor health and many pains, so 
grateful for small kindnesses, so appreciative of small 
talents, so indulgent to small vanities (of which she 
seemed to have no more share than her mother), and 
so deeply humorous in spite of her eternal gravity — 
for she was a real tomboy at heart — that I soon 
carried her, not only to please her mother, but to 
please herself, and would have done anything for 
her. 

As for M. le Major, he gradually discovered that 
Mimsey was half a martyr and half a saint, and pos- 
sessed all the virtues under the sun. 

‘‘Ah, vous ne la comprenez pas, cette enfant ; vous 
verrez un jour quand 9a ira mieux ! vous verrez ! elle 
est comme sa mere . . . elle a toutes les intelligences 
de la tete et du coeur 1” and he would wish it had 
pleased Heaven that he should be her grandfather 
— on the maternal side. 


46 


PETER IBBETSOIT. 


Lart (THre grandpere ! This weather-beaten, war- 
battered old soldier had learned it, without ever 
having had either a son or a daughter of his own. 
He was a hoTn grandfather ! 

Moreover, Mirasey and I had many tastes and 
passions in common — music, for instance, as well as 
Bewick’s wood-cuts and Byron’s poetry, and roast 
chestnuts and domestic pets ; and above all, the Mare 
d’Auteuil, which she preferred in the autumn, when 
the brown and yellow leaves were eddying and scam- 
pering and chasing each other round its margin, or 
drifting on its troubled surface, and the cold wet 
wind piped through the dishevelled boughs of the 
forest, under the leaden sky. 

She said it was good to be there then, and think of 
home and the fireside ; and better still, when home 
was reached at last, to think of the desolate pond we 
had left ; and good, indeed, it was to trudge home 
by wood and park and avenue at dusk, when the 
bats were about, with Alfred and Charlie and 
Mimsey and Madge and Medor; swishing our waj 
through the lush, dead leaves, scattering the beauti- 
ful, ripe horse-chestnut out of its split creamy case, 
or picking up acorns and beechnuts here and there 
as we went. 

And, once home, it was good, very good, to think 
how dark and lonesome and shivery it must be out 
there by the mare^ as we squatted and chatted and 
roasted chestnuts by the wood fire in the school-room 
before the candles were lit — entre chien et loup, as 
was called the French gloaming — while Therese was 


PETER IBBETSON. 


47 


laying the tea-things, and telling us the news, and 
cutting bread and butter; and my mother played 
the harp in the drawing-room above ; till the last 
red streak died out of the wet west behind the sway- 
ing tree-tops, and the curtains were drawn, and there 
Avas light, and the appetites were let loose. 

I love to sit here, in my solitude and captivity, 
and recall every incident of that sweet epoch — to 
ache with the pangs of happy remembrance ; than 
which, for the likes of me, great poets tell us there 
is no greater grief. This sorroAV s croAvn of sorrow 
is my joy and my consolation, and ever has been ; 
and I would not exchange it for youth, health, 
wealth, honor, and freedom ; only for thrice happy 
childhood itself once more, over and over again, 
would I give up its thrice happy recollections. 


That it should not he all beer and skittles with us, 
and therefore apt to pall, my cousins and I had to 
Avork pretty hard. In the first place, my dear moth- 
er did all she could to make me an infant prodigy 
of learning. She tried to teach me Italian, which she 
spoke as fiuently as English or French (for she had 
lived much in Italy), and I had to translate the 
Gierusalemme Liberata ” into both those latter lan- 
guages — a task which has remained unfinished — and 
to render the Allegro ” and the Penseroso ” into 
Miltonian French prose, and Le Cid ” into Corneil- 
lian English. Then there were Pinnock’s histories 
of Greece and Kome to master, and, of course, the 


48 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Bible ; and, every Sunday, the Collect, the Gospel, 
and the Epistle to get by heart. ISTo, it was not all 
beer and skittles. 

It was her pleasure to teach, but, alas ! not mine 
to learn ; and we cost each other many a sigh, but 
loved each other all the more, perhaps. 

Then we went in the mornings, my cousins and I, 
to M. Saindou’s, opposite, that we might learn French 
grammar and French-Latin and French-Greek. But 
on three afternoons out of the weekly six Mr. Slade, 
a Cambridge sizar stranded in Paris, came to angli- 
cize (and neutralize) the Latin and Greek we had 
learned in the morning, and to show us what sorry 
stuff the French had made of them and of their 
quantities. 

Perhaps the Greek and Latin quantities are a lux- 
ury of English growth — a mere social test — a little 
pitfall of our own invention, like the letter A, for the 
tripping up of unwary pretenders ; or else, French 
education being so deplorably cheap in those days, 
the school -masters there could not afford to take 
such fanciful superfluities into consideration ; it was 
not to be done at the price. 

In France, be it remembered, the King and his 
greengrocer sent their sons to the same school (which 
did not happen to be M. Saindou’s, by the way, where 
it was nearly all greengrocer and no King) ; and the 
fee for bed, board, and tuition, in all public schools 
alike, was something like thirty pounds a year. 

The Latin, in consequence, was without the dis- 
tinction that comes of exclusiveness, and quite lacked 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


49 


that aristocratic flavor, so grateful and comforting to 
scholar and ignoramus alike, which the costly British 
public-school system (and the British accent) alone 
can impart to a 
dead language. 

When French is 
dead we shall lend 
it a grace it never 
had before; some 
of us even man- 
age to do so al 
ready. 

That is (no 
doubt) why the 
best French writ- 
ers so seldom 
point their mor- 
als and adorn 
their tales, as ours 
do, with the usual 
pretty, familiar, 
and appropriate 
lines out of Hor- 
ace or Yirgil; and 
why Latin is so 
little (][uoted in “good old slade.” 

French talk, ex- 
cept here and there by a weary shop-walker, who 



sighs — 

“ Y arium et mutabile semper femina as he rolls 
up the unsold silk; or exclaims, ‘‘O rus! quando te 

4 


50 


PETER IBBETSON. 


aspiciam !” as he takes his railway ticket for Asnieres 
on the first fine Sunday morning in spring. 

But this is a digression, and we have wandered 
far away from Mr. Slade. 

Good old Slade ! 

■\Ve used to sit on the stone posts outside the 
avenue gate and watch for his appearance at a cer- 
tain distant corner of the winding street. 

With his green tail coat, his stiff shirt collar, his 
thick flat thumbs stuck in the armholes of his nan- 
keen waistcoat, his long flat feet turned inward, his 
reddish mutton-chop whiskers, his hat on the back 
of his head, and his clean, fresh, blooming, virtuous, 
English face — the sight of him was not sympathetic 
when he appeared at last. 

Occasionally, in the course of his tuition, illness 
or domestic affairs would, to his great regret, detain 
him from our midst, and the beatitude we would 
experience when the conviction gradually dawned 
upon us that we were watching for him in vain 
was too deep for either words or deeds or outward 
demonstration of any sort. It was enough to sit 
on our stone posts and let it steal over us by de- 
grees. 

These beatitudes were few and far between. It 
would be infelicitous, perhaps, to compare the occa- 
sional absences of a highly respectable English tutor 
to an angel’s visits, but so we felt them. 

And then he would make up for it next after- 
noon, that conscientious Englishman ; which was fair 
enough to our parents, but not to us. And then 


PETER IBBETSON. 


51 


what extra severity, as interest for the beggarly loan 
of half an afternoon ! What rappings on ink-stained 
knuckles with a beastly, hard, round, polished, heavy- 
wooded, business-like English ruler ! 

It was our way in those days to think that every- 
thing English was beastly — an expression our par- 
ents thought we were much too fond of using. 

But perhaps we were not without some excuse for 
this unpardonable sentiment. For there was another 
English family in Passy — the Prendergasts, an older 
family than ours — that is, the parents (and uncles 
and aunts) were middle-aged, the grandmother dead, 
and the children grown up. We had not the honor 
of their acquaintance. But whether that was their 
misfortune and our fault (or vice versa) I cannot tell. 
Let us hope the former. 

They were of an opposite type to ours, and, though 
I say it, their type was a singularly unattractive 
one ; perhaps it may have been the original of those 
caricatures of our compatriots by which French 
comic artists have sought to avenge Waterloo. It 
was stiff, haughty, contemptuous. It had prominent 
front teeth, a high nose, a long upper lip, a receding 
jaw ; it had dull, cold, stupid, selfish green eyes, like 
a pike’s, that swerved neither to right nor left, but 
looked steadily over peoples’ heads as it stalked 
along in its pride of impeccable British self-right- 
eousness. 

At the sudden sight of it (especially on Sundays) 
all the cardinal virtues became hateful on the spot, 
and respectability a thing to run away from. Even 


52 


PETER IBBETSON. 


that smooth, close -shaven cleanliness was so Purh 
tanically aggressive as to make one abhor the very 
idea of soap. 

Its accent, when it spoke French (in shops), in- 
stead of being musical and sweet and sympathetic, 
like Madame Seraskier’s, was barbarous and gro- 
tesque, with dreadful “ ongs,” and angs,” and ‘‘ ows,” 
and ‘‘ ays and its manner overbearing, suspicious, 
and disdainful ; and then we could hear its loud, in- 
solent English asides; and though it was tall and 
straight and not outwardly deformed, it looked such 
a kill-joy skeleton at a feast, such a portentous car- 
nival mask of solemn emptiness, such a dreary, dole- 
ful, unfunny figure of fun, that one felt Waterloo 
might some day be forgiven, even in Passy ; but the 
Prendergasts, never ! 

I have lived so long away from the world that, 
for all I know, this ancient British type, this “ grim, 
ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore,” 
may have become extinct, like another, but less un- 
prepossessing bird — the dodo ; whereby our state is 
the more gracious. 

But in those days, and generalizing somewhat 
hastily as young people are apt to do, we grew to 
think that England must be full of Prendergasts, 
and did not want to go there. 

To this universal English beasthness of things we 
made a few exceptions, it is true, but the list was not 
long : tea, mustard, pickles, gingerbread-nuts, and, of 
all things in the world, the English loaf of house- 
hold bread that came to us once a week as a great 


PETER IBBETSON. 


53 


treat and recompense for our virtues, and harmo- 
nized so well with Passy butter. It Avas too de- 
licious ! But there was always a difficulty, a dilem- 
ma — whether to eat it with butter alone, or with 
‘‘cassonade” (French brown sugar) added. 

Mimsey knew her own mind, and loved it with 
French brown sugar, and if she were not there I 
would save for her half of my slices, and carefully 
cassonade them for her myself. 

On the other hand, we thought everything French 
tlie reverse of beastly — except all the French boys 
we knew, and at M. Saindou’s there were about two 
hundred; then there were all the boys in Passy 
(whose name was legion, and who did not go to M. 
Saindou’s), and we kneAV all the boys in Passy. So 
that we were not utterly bereft of material for 
good, stodgy, crusty, patriotic English prejudice. 

Nor did the French boys fail to think us beastly 
in return, and sometimes to express the thought; 
especially the little vulgar boys, whose playground 
was the street — the voyous de Passy. Thej^ hated 
our white silk chimney-pot hats and large collars 
and Eton jackets, and called us ‘‘sacred godems,” 
as their ancestors used to call ours in the days of 
Joan of Arc. Sometimes they would throw stones, 
and then there were collisions, and bleedings of im- 
pertinent little French noses, and runnings away of 
cowardly little French legs, and dreadful wails of 
“ O la, la ! O la, la — maman !” when they were over- 
taken by English ones. 

Hot but what our noses were made to bleed now 


54 


PETER IBBETSON. 


and then, unvictoriously, by a certain blacksmith — 
always the same young blacksmith — Boitard ! 

It is always a young blacksmith who does these 

things — or a young 
butcher. 

Of course, for the 
honor of Oreat 
Britain, one of us 
finally licked him 
to such a tune that 
he has never been 
able to hold up his 
head since. It was 
about a cat. It 
came off at dusk, 
one Christmas Eve, 
on the ‘‘Isle of 
Swans,” between 
Passy and Crenelle 
(too late to save the 
cat). 

I was the hero of 
this battle. “ It’s 
now or never,” I 
thought, and saw 
scarlet, and went 
for my foe like a maniac. The ring was kept by Al- 
fred and Charlie, helped, oddly enough, by a couple 
of male Prendergasts, who so far forgot themselves 
as to take an interest in the proceedings. Madge 
and Mimsey looked on, terrified and charmed. 



PETEE IBBETSON. 


55 


It did not last long, and was worthy of being de- 
scribed by Homer, or even in BelVs Life. That is 
one of the reasons why I will not describe it. The 
two Prendergasts seemed to enjoy it very much 
while it lasted, and when it was ov^er they re- 
membered themselves again, and said nothing, and 
stalked away. 


As we grew older and wiser we had permission 
to extend our explorations to Meudon, Versailles, 
St. Germain, and other delightful places ; to ride 
thither on hired horses, after having duly learned 
to ride at the famous “ School of Equitation,” in 
the Hue Duphot. 

Also, we swam in those delightful summer baths 
in the Seine, that are so majestically called ‘‘ Schools 
of Natation,” and became past masters in “la coupe” 
(a stroke no other Englishman but ourselves has 
ever been quite able to manage), and in all the dif- 
ferent delicate “nuances” of header -taking — “la 
coulante,” “ la hussarde,” “ la tete-beche,” “ la tout 
ce que vous voudrez.” 

Also, we made ourselves at home in Paris, es- 
pecially old Paris. 

For instance, there was the island of St. Louis, 
with its stately old mansions entnre cour et jardin, 
behind grim stone portals and high walls, where 
great magistrates and lawyers dwelt in dignified 
seclusion— the nobles of the robe; but where once 
had dwelt, in days gone by, the greater nobles of 


56 


PETBE IBBETSON. 


the sword — crusaders, perhaps, and knights tem- 
plars, like Brian de Bois Guilbert. 

And that other more famous island, la Cite, where 
Paris itself was born, where Notre Dame reared its 

twin towers above the 
melancholy, gray, lep- 
rous walls and dirty 
brown roofs of the 
Hotel-Dieu. 

Pathetic little tum- 
ble down old houses, 



“ SETTLING AN OLD SCORE.’ 


PETER IBBETSON. 


57 


all out of drawing and perspective, nestled like old 
spiders’ webs between the buttresses of the great 
cathedral; and on two sides of the little square in 
front (the Place du Parvis Notre Dame) stood an- 
cient stone dwellings, with high slate roofs and 
elaborately-wrought iron balconies. They seemed 
to have such romantic histories that I never tired 
of gazing at them, and wondering what the histories 
could be; and now I think of it, one of these very 
dwellings must have been the Hotel de Gondelaurier, 
where, according to the most veracious historian that 
ever was, poor Esmeralda once danced and played 
the tambourine to divert the fair damosel Fleur-de- 
Lys de Gondelaurier and her noble friends, all of 
whom she so transcended in beauty, purity, good- 
ness, and breeding (although she was but an un- 
taught, wandering gypsy girl, out of the gutter) ; 
and there, before them all and the gay archer, she 
was betrayed to her final undoing by her goat, whom 
she had so imprudently taught how to spell the be- 
loved name of ‘‘ Phebus.” 

Close by was the Morgue, that grewsome build- 
ing which the great etcher Meryon has managed to 
invest with some weird fascination akin to that it 
had for me in those days — and has now, as I see it 
with the charmed eyes of Memory. 

La Morgue ! what a fatal twang there is about 
the very name I 

After gazing one’s fill at the horrors within (as be- 
came a healthy-minded English boy) it was but a 
step to the equestrian statue of Henri Quatre, on 


58 


PETER IBBET80N. 


the Pont-Neuf (the oldest bridge in Paris, by the 
way); there, astride his long -tailed charger, he 
smiled, le roy vert et galant^ just midway between 
either bank of the historic river, just where it was 
most historic ; and turned his back on the Paris of 
the Bourgeois King with the pear-shaped face and 
the mutton-chop whiskers. 

And there one stood, spellbound in indecision, 
like the ass of Buridan between two sacks of oats ; 
for on either side, north or south of the Pont-Keuf, 
were to be found enchanting slums, all more attract- 
ive the ones than the others, winding up and down 
hill and roundabout and in and out, like haunting 
illustrations by Gustave Dore to DrolaUch Tales 
by Balzac (not seen or read by me till many years 
later, I beg to say). 

Dark, narrow, silent, deserted streets that would 
turn up afterwards in many a nightmare — with the 
gutter in the middle and towerlets and stone posts 
all along the sides ; and high fantastic walls (where 
it was defendu d^afficher\ with bits of old battle- 
ment at the top, and overhanging boughs of syca- 
more and lime, and behind them gray old gardens 
that dated from the days of Louis le Hutin and 
beyond! And suggestive names printed in old 
rusty iron letters at the street corners — ‘‘ Bue 
Yidegousset,’’ ‘‘Hue Coupe - gorge,” “Kue de la 
Yieille Truanderie,” “ Impasse de la Tour de ISTesle,” 
etc., that appealed to the imagination like a chap- 
ter from Hugo or Dumas. 

And the way to these was by long, tortuous, 


PETER IBBETSON. 


59 


busy thoroughfares, most irregularly flagged, and 
all alive with strange, delightful people in blue 
blouses, brown woollen tricots, wooden shoes, red 
and white cotton nightcaps, rags and patches ; most 
graceful girls, with pretty, self-respecting feet, and 
flashing eyes, and no head-dress but their own hair ; 
gay, fat hags, all smile ; thin hags, with faces of ap- 
palling wickedness or misery ; precociously witty 
little gutter-imps of either sex ; and such cripples ! 
jovial hunchbacks, lusty blind beggars, merry creep- 
ing paralytics, scrofulous wretches who joked and 
punned about their sores ; light-hearted, genial, men- 
dicant monsters without arms or legs, who went 
ramping through the mud on their bellies from one 
underground wine-shop to another ; and blue-chinned 
priests and barefooted brown monks and demure 
Sisters of Charity, and here and there a jolly chif- 
fonnier with his hook, and his knap-basket behind ; 
or a cuirassier, or a gigantic carbineer, or gay little 
“ Hunter of Africa,” or a couple of bold gendarmes 
riding abreast, with their towering black honnets d 
poil ; or a pair of pathetic little red-legged soldiers, 
conscripts just fresh from the country, with inno- 
cent light eyes and straw-colored hair and freckled 
brown faces, walking hand in hand, and staring at 
all the pork-butchers’ shops— and sometimes at the 
pork-butcher’s wife ! 

Then a proletarian wedding procession — headed 
by the bride and bridegroom, an ungainly pair in 
their Sunday best — all singing noisily together. 
Then a pauper funeral, or a covered stretcher, fol- 


60 


PETER IBBETSON. 


lowed by sympathetic eyes on its way to the Hotel- 
Dieu ; or the last sacrament, Avith bell and candle, 
bound for the bedside of some humble agonizer in 
extremis — and we all uncovered as it went by. 

And then, for a running accompaniment of sound, 
the clanging chimes, the itinerant street cries, the 
tinkle of the marchand de coco^ the drum, the cor de 
chasse^ the organ of Barbary, the ubiquitous pet par- 
rot, the knife-grinder, the bawling fried-potato mon- 
ger, and, most amusing of all, the poodle-clipper and 
his son, strophe and antistrophe, for every minute 
the little boy would yell out in his shrill treble that 
his father clipped poodles for thirty sous, and was 
competent also to undertake the management of re- 
fractory tomcats,” upon Avhich the father would 
growl in his solemn bass, “ My son speaks the truth ” 
— enfant dit mai ! 

And rising above the general cacophony the din 
of the eternally cracking whip, of the heavy cart- 
wheel jolting OA^er the uneven stones, the stamp and 
neigh of the spirited little French cart-horse and the 
music of his many bells, and the cursing and sAvear- 
ing and hue! did! of his driver! It Avas all en- 
trancing. 


Thence home — to quiet, innocent, suburban Passy 
— by the quays, Avalking on the top of the stone 
parapet all the way, so as to miss nothing (till a 
gendarme was in sight), or else by the Boulevards, 
the Bue de Kivoli, the Champs Elysees, the AA^e- 


PETER IBBETSON. 


61 


nue de St. Cloud, and the Chaussee de la Muette. 
What a .beautiful walk! Is there another like it 
anywhere as it was then, in the sweet early forties 
of this worn-out old century, and before this poor 
scribe had reached his teens ? 

Ah ! it is something to have known that Paris, 
which^ lay at one’s feet as one gazed from the 
heights of Passy, with all its pinnacles and spires 
and gorgeously-gilded domes, its Arch of Triumph, 
its Elysian Fields, its Field of Mars, its Towers of 
our Lady, its far-off Column of July, its Invalids, 
and Yale of Grace, and JVfagdalen, and Place of the 
Concord, where the obelisk reared its exotic peak 
by the beautiful unforgettable fountains. ' 

There flowed the many -bridged winding river, 
always the same way, unlike our tidal Thames, and 
always full ; just beyond it was spread that stately, 
exclusive suburb, the despair of the newly rich and 
recently ennobled, where almost every other house 
bore a name which read like a page of French 
history ; and farther still the merry, wicked Latin 
quarter and the grave Sorbonne, the Pantheon, the 
Garden of Plants; on the hither side, in the mid- 
dle distance, the Louvre, where the kings of France 
had dwelt for centuries ; the Tuileries, where “ the 
King of the French” dwelt then, and just for a little 
while yet. 

Well I knew and loved it all ; and most of all I 
loved it when the sun was setting at my back, and 
innumerable distant windows reflected the blood-red 
western flame. It seemed as though half Paris 


62 


PETER IBBETSON. 


were on fire, with the cold blue east for a back- 
ground.. 

Dear Paris ! 

Yes, it is something to have roamed over it as a 
small boy — a small English boy (that is, a small boy 
unattended by his mother or his nurse), curious, in- 
quisitive, and indefatigable ; full of imagination ; all 
his senses keen with the keenness that belongs to 
the morning of life : the sight of a hawk, the hear- 
ing of a bat, almost the scent of a hound. 

Indeed, it required a nose both subtle and unprej- 
udiced to understand and appreciate and thorough- 
ly enjoy that Paris — not the Paris of M. le Baron 
Haussmann, lighted by gas and electricity, and 
flushed and drained by modern science; but the 
‘‘good old Paris” of Balzac and Eugene Sue and 
Les Mysteres — the Paris of dim oil-lanterns suspend- 
ed from iron gibbets (where once aristocrats had 
been hung) ; of water-carriers who sold water from 
their hand-carts, and delivered it at your door {au 
cinquieme) for a penny a pail — to drink of, and wash 
in, and cook with, and all. 

There were whole streets — and these by no means 
the least fascinating and romantic — where the un- 
written domestic records of every house were afloat 
in the air outside it — records not all savory or 
sweet, but always full of interest and charm ! 

One knew at a sniff as one passed the porte co~ 
chere what kind of people lived behind and above ; 
what they ate and what they drank, and what their 
trade was ; whether they did their washing at home, 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


63 


and burned tallow or wax, and mixed chicory with 
their coffee, and were over-fond of Gruyere cheese 
— the biggest, cheapest, plainest, and most formid- 
able cheese in the world ; whether they fried with 
oil or butter, and liked their omelets overdone and 
garlic in their salad, and sipped black-currant bran- 
dy or anisette as a liqueur ; and were overrun with 
mice, and used cats or mouse -traps to get rid of 
them, or neither ; and bought violets, or pinks, or 
gillyflowers in season, and kept them too long ; and 
fasted on Friday with red or white beans, or lentils, 
or had a dispensation from the Pope — or, haply, 
even dis pense d with th^^bpe’s dispensation. 

For of such a telltale kind were the overtones in 
that complex, odorous clang. 

I will not define its fundamental note — ever 
there, ever the same ; big with a warning of quick- 
coming woe to many households ; whose unheeded 
waves, slow but sure, and ominous as those that 
rolled on great occasions from le Bourdon de Notre 
Dame (the Big Ben of Paris), drove all over the gay 
city and beyond, night and day — penetrating every 
corner, overflowing the most secret recesses, drown- 
ing the very incense by the altar-steps. 

“Le paiivre en sa cabane le chaume le couvre 
Est sujet ^ ses lois; 

Et la garde qiii veille aiix barri^res du Louvre 
N’en defend point nos rois.” 

And here, as I write, the faint, scarcely percep- 
tible, ghost-like suspicion of a scent — a mere nostal- 


64 


PETER IBBETSON. 


gic fancy, compound, generic, synthetic and all-em- 
bracing — an abstract olfactory symbol of the “ Tout 
Paris ” of fifty years ago, comes back to me out of 
the past ; and fain would I inhale it in all its pristine 
fulness and vigor. For scents, like musical sounds, 
are rare sublimaters of the essence of memory (this is 
a prodigious fine phrase — I hope it means something), 
and scents need not be seductive in themselves to 
recall the seductions of scenes and days gone by. 

Alas I scents cannot be revived at will, like an 

“Air doux et tendre 
Jadis aimer* 


Oh, that I could hum or whistle an old French 
smell ! I could evoke all Paris, sweet, prge-imperial 
Paris, in a single whiff ! 


In such fashion did we three small boys, like the 
three musketeers (the fame of whose exploits was 
then filling all France), gather and pile up sweet 
memories, to chew the cud thereof in after years, 
when far away and apart. 

Of all that bande joyeuse — old and young and 
middle-aged, from M. le Major to Mimsey Seraskier 
— all are now dead but me — all except dear Madge, 
who was so pretty and light-hearted; and I have 
never seen her since. 


Thus have I tried, with as much haste as I could 


PETER IBBETSON. 


65 


command (being one of the plodding sort) to sketch 
that happy time, which came to an end suddenly 
and most tragically when I was twelv'e years old. 

My dear and jovial happy-go-lucky father was 
killed in a minute by the explosion of a safety-lamp 
of his own invention, which was to have superseded 
Sir Humphry Davy’s, and made our fortune ! What 
a brutal irony of fate. 

So sanguine was he of success, so confident that 
his ship had come home at last, that he had been 
in treaty for a nice little old manor in Anjou (with 
a nice little old castle to match), called la Mariere, 
which had belonged to his ancestors, and from 
which we took our name (for we were Pasquier de 
la Mariere, of quite a good old family) ; and there 
we were to live on our own land, as gentilshommes 
campagnards^ and be French for evermore, under a 
paternal, pear-faced bourgeois king as a temporary 
pis-aller until Henri Cinq, Comte de Charabord, 
should come to his own again, and make us counts 
and barons and peers of France — Heaven knows 
what for ! 

My mother, who was beside herself with grief, 
went over to London, where this miserable accident 
had occurred, and had barely arrived there when 
she was delivered of a still-born child, and died al- 
most immediately ; and I became an orphan in less 
than a week, and a penniless one. For it turned 
out that my father had by this time spent every 
penny of his own and my mother’s capital, and had, 
moreover, died deeply in debt. I was too young 
5 


66 


PETER IBBETSON. 


and too grief-stricken to feel anything but the terri- 
ble bereavement, but it soon became patent to me 
that an immense alteration was to be made in my 
mode of life. 

A relative of my mother’s, Colonel Ibbetson (who 
was well off) came to Passy to do his best for me, 
and pay what debts had been incurred in the neigh- 
borhood, and settle my miserable affairs. 

After a while it was decided by him and the rest 
of the family that I should go back with him to 
London, there to be disposed of for the best, accord- 
ing to his lights. 

And on a beautiful June morning, redolent of lilac 
and syringa, and gay with dragon-flies and butter- 
flies and bumblebees, my happy childhood ended 
as it had begun. My farewells were heartrending 
(to me), but showed that I could inspire affection 
as well as feel it, and that was some compensation 
for my woe. 

“Adieu, cher Monsieur Gogo. Bonne chance, et 
le Bon Dieu vous benisse,” said le Pere et la Mere 
Francois. Tears trickled down the Major’s hooked 
nose on to his mustache, now nearly white. 

Madame Seraskier strained me to her kind heart, 
and blessed and kissed me again and again, and 
rained her warm tears on my face; and hers was 
the last figure I saw as our fly turned into the Eue 
de la Tour on our way to London, Colonel Ibbetson 
exclaiming — 

“ Gad ! who’s the lovely young giantess that seems 
so fond of you, you little rascal, hey ? By George ! 



1 




68 


PETER IBBETSON. 


you young Don Giovanni, I’d have given something 
to be in your place ! And who’s that nice old man 
with the long green coat and the red ribbon? A 
vieille moustache^ I suppose ; looks almost like a gen- 
tleman. Precious few Frenchmen can do that !” 

Such was Colonel Ibbetson. 

And then and there, even as he spoke, a little drop 
of sullen, chill dislike to my guardian and benefac- 
tor, distilled from his voice, his aspect, the expression 
of his face, and his way of saying things, suddenly 
trickled into my consciousness — never to be wiped 
away ! 

As for poor Mimsey, her grief was so overwhelm- 
ing that she could not come out and wish me good- 
bye like the others; and it led, as I afterwards heard, 
to a long illness, the worst she ever had ; and when 
she recovered it was to find that her beautiful moth- 
er was no more. 

Madame Seraskier died of the cholera, and so did 
le Pere et la Mere Frangois, and Madame Pele, and 
one of the Napoleonic prisoners (not M. le Major)^ 
and several other people we had known, including 
a servant of our own,’ Therese, the devoted Therese, 
to whom we were all devoted in return. That malo- 
dorous tocsin, which I have compared to the big bell 
of Notre Dame, had warned, and warned, and warned 
in vain. • 

The maison de scmte was broken up. M. le Major 
and his friends went and roosted on parole else- 
where, until a good time arrived for them, when 
their lost leader came back and remained — first as 


PETER IBBETSON. 


69 


President of the French Kepubho, then as Emperor 
of the French themselves. Ko more parole was 
needed after that. 

My grandmother and Aunt Plunket and her chil- 
dren fled in terror to Tours, and Mimsey went to 
Kussia with her father. 

Thus miserably ended that too happy septennate, 
and so no more at present of 


“Le joli lieu de ma naissance 1” 


70 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Ipart Second. 



';HE next decade of my outer 
life is so uninteresting, 
; even to myself, that I will 
hurry through it as fast as 
I can. It will prove dull 
reading, I fear. 

My Uncle Ibbetson (as I 
now called him) took to 
me and arranged to edu- 
cate and start me in 
life, and make “a gen- 
tleman” of me — an ‘‘English gentleman.” But I 
had to change my name and adopt his; for some 
reason I did not know, he seemed to hate my fa- 
ther’s very name. Perhaps it was because he had in- 
jured my father through life in many ways, and my 
father had always forgiven him ; a very good rea- 
son ! Perhaps it was because he had proposed to my 
mother three times when she was a girl, and had 
been thrice refused ! (After the third time, he went 
to India for seven years, and just before his depart- 
ure my father and mother were married, and a year 
after that I was born.) 

So Pierre Pasquier de la Mariere, alias Monsieur 
Gogo, became Master Peter Ibbetson, and went to 
Bluefriars, the gray-coat school, where he spent six 


PETER IBBETSON. 


71 


years — an important slice out of a man’s life, espe- 
cially at that age. 

I hated the garb, I hated the surroundings — the 
big hospital at the back, and that reek of cruelty, 
drunkenness, and filth, the cattle -market — where 
every other building was either a slaughter-house, 
a gin - palace, or a pawnbroker’s shop ; more than 
all I hated the gloomy jail opposite, where they 
sometimes hanged a man in public on a Monday 
morning. This dismal prison haunted my dreams 
when I wanted to dream of Passy, of my dear dead 
father and mother and Madame Seraskier. * 

For the first term or two they were ever in my 
thoughts, and I was always trying to draw their 
profiles on desks and slates and copybooks, till at 
last all resemblance seemed to fade out of them; 
and then I drew M. le Major till his side face be- 
came quite demoralized and impossible, and ceased 
to be like anything in fife. Then I fell back on 
others : le Pere Fran§ois, with his eternal honnet de 
coton and sabots stuffed with straw ; the dog Medor, 
the rocking-horse, and all the rest of the menagerie ; 
the diligence that brought me away from Paris; 
the heavily jack-booted couriers in shiny hats and 
pigtails, and white breeches, and short-tailed blue 
coats covered with silver buttons, who used to ride 
through Passy, on their way to and fro between the 
Tuileries and St. Cloud, on little, neighing, gray 
stallions with bells round their necks and tucked-up 
tails, and beautiful heads like the horses’ heads in 
the Elgin Marbles. 


72 


PETER IBBETSON. 


In my sketches they always looked and walked 
and trotted the same way : to the left, or westward 
as it would be on the map. M. le Major, Madame 
Seraskier, Medor, the diligences and couriers, were 
all bound westward by common consent — all going 
to London, I suppose, to look after me, who was so 
dotingly fond of them. 

Some of the hoys used to admire these sketches 
and preserve them — some of the bigger boys would 
value my ideahzed (!) profiles of Madame Seraskier, 
with eyelashes quite an inch in length, and an eye 
three times the size of her mouth ; and thus I made 
myself an artistic reputation for a while. But it 
did not last long, for my vein was limited ; and soon 
another boy came to the school, who surpassed me 
in variety and interest of subject, and could draw 
profiles looking either way with equal ease ; he is 
now a famous Academician, and seems to have pre- 
served much of his old facihty.* 


Thus, on the whole, my school career was nei- 
ther happy nor unhappy, nor did I distinguish my- 
self in any way, nor (though I think I was rather 


* Note . — I have here omitted several pages, containing a descrip- 
tion in detail of my cousin’s life “ at Bluefriars and also the portraits 
(not always flattering) which he has written of masters and boys, many 
of whom are still alive, and some of whom have risen to distinction ; 
but these sketches would be without special interest unless the names 
were given as well, and that would be unadvisable for many reasons. 
Moreover, there is not much in what I have left out that has any bear- 
ing on his subsequent life, or the development of his character. 

Madge Plunket. 


A DREAM OP CHIVALRY. 



liked than otherwise) make any great or lasting 
friendships ; on the other hand, I did not in any 
way disgrace myself, nor make a single enemy that 
I knew of. Except that I grew out of the common 
tall and very strong, a more commonplace boy than 
I must have seemed (after my artistic vein had run 
itself dry) never went to a public school. So much 
for my outer life at Bluefriars. 

But I had an inner world of my own, whose cap- 
ital was Passy, whose fauna and flora were not to 
be surpassed by anything in Kegent’s Park or the 
Zoological Gardens, 


74 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


It was good to think of it by day, to dream of it 
by night, although I had not yet learned how to dream! 

There were soon other and less exclusive regions, 
however, which I shared with other boys of that 
by- gone day. Eegions of freedom and delight, 
where I heard the ominous crack of Deerslayer’s 
rifle, and was friends with Chingachgook and his 
noble son — the last, alas ! of the Mohicans : where 
Kobin Hood and Friar Tuck made merry, and ex- 
changed buffets with Lion-hearted Richard under 
the green-wood tree : where Quentin Durward, hap- 
py squire of dames, rode midnightly by their side 
through the gibbet -and -gipsy- haunted forests of 
Touraine. . . . Ah ! I had my dream of chivalry ! 

Happy times and climes ! One must be a gray- 
coated school-boy, in the heart of foggy London, to 
know that nostalgia. 

Hot, indeed, but what London has its merits. 
Sam Weller lived there, and Charley Bates, and the 
irresistible Artful Dodger — and Dick Swiveller, and 
his adorable Marchioness, who divided my allegiance 
with Rebecca of York and sweet Diana Yernon. 

It was good to be an English boy in those days, 
and care for such friends as these! But it \vas 
good to be a French boy also ; to have known Paris, 
to possess the true French feel of things — and the 
language. 

Indeed, bilingual boys — boys double-tongued from 
their very birth (especially in French and English) 
— enjoy certain rare privileges. It is not a bad 
thing for a school-boy (since a school-boy he must 


PETER IBBETSON. 


75 


be) to hail from two mother-countries if he can, and 
revel now and then in the sweets of homesickness 
for that of his two mother -countries in which he 
does not happen to be ; and read Les Trois Mous- 
quetaires in the cloisters of Bluefriars, or Ivanhoe in 
the dull, dusty prison-yard that serves for a play- 
ground in so many a French lycee ! 

Without listening, he hears all round him the 
stodgy language of every day, and the blatant shouts 
of his school -fellows, in the voices he knows so 
painfully well — those shrill trebles, those cracked 
barytones and frog-like early basses! There they 
go, bleating and croaking and yelling; Dick, Tom, 
and Harry, or Jules, Hector, and Alphonse ! How 
vaguely tiresome and trivial and commonplace they 
are — those too familiar sounds; yet what an addi- 
tional charm they lend to that so utterly different 
but equally familiar word-stream that comes silently 
flowing into his consciousness through his rapt eyes ! 
The luxurious sense of mental exclusiveness and 
self -sequestration is made doubly complete by the 
contrast 1 

And for this strange enchantment to be well and 
thoroughly felt, both his languages must be native ; 
not acquired, however perfectly. Every single word 
must have its roots deep down in a personal past so 
remote for him as to be almost unrernembered ; the 
very sound and printed aspect of each must be rich 
in childish memories of home ; in all the countless, 
nameless, priceless associations that make it sweet 
and fresh and strong, and racy of the soil. 


76 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Oh! Porthos, Athos, and D’Artagnan — how I 
loved you, and your immortal squires, Planchet, 
Griraaud, Mousqueton 1 How well and wittily you 
spoke the language I adored — better even than 
good Monsieur Lallemand, the French master at 
Bluefriars, who could wield the most irregular sub- 
junctives as if they had been mere feathers — trifles 
light as air. 

Then came the Count of Monte-Cristo, who taught 
me (only too well) his terrible lesson of hatred and 
revenge ; and Les Mysteres de Paris, Le Juif Errant 
and others. 

But no words tnat I can think of in either moth- 
er-tongue can express what I felt when first, through 
these tear-dimmed eyes of mine, and deep into my 
harrowed soul, came silently flowing the never-to- 
be-forgotten history of poor Esmeralda,* my first 
love ! whose cruel fate filled with pity, sorrow, and 
indignation the last term of my life at school. It 
was the most important, the most solemn, the most 
epoch-making event of my school life. I read it, re- 
read it, and read it again. I have not been able to 
read it since ; it is rather long ! but how well I re- 
member it, and how short it seemed then ! and oh ! 
how short those well-spent hours ! 

That mystic word ^AvajKrjl I wrote it on the 
fly-leaf of all my books. I carved it on my desk. 
I intoned it in the echoing cloisters! I vowed I 
would make a pilgrimage to Notre Dame some 


jPame de Faris, par Victor Hugo, 


PETER IBBETSON. 


77 


day, that I might hunt ior it in every hole and 
corner there, and read it with my own eyes, and 
feel it with my own forefinger. 

And then that terrible prophetic song the old hag 
sings in the dark slum — how it haunted me, too ! I 
could not shake it out of my troubled consciousness 
for months : 

“Grouille, Gr^ve, gr^ve, grouille, 

File, File, ma quenouille : 

File sa corde au bourreau 
Qui siffle dans le preau. 


’AvdyKTj ! ’AvdyKt ] ! ’AvdyKt) V* 

Yes; it was worth while having been a little 
French boy just for a few years. 

I especially found it so during the holidays, which 
I regularly spent at Bluefriars; for there was a 
French circulating library in Holborn, close by — a 
paradise. It was' kept by a delightful old French 
lady who had seen better days, and was very kind 
to me, and did not lend me all the books I asked for! 

Thus irresistibly beguiled by these light wizards 
of our degenerate age, I dreamed away most of my 
school life, utterly deaf to the voices of the older 
enchanters — Homer, Horace, Yirgil — whom I was 
sent to school on purpose to make friends with ; a 
deafness I lived to deplore, like other dunces, when 
it was too late. 


And I was not only given to dream by day — I 


78 


PETER IBBETSON. 


dreamed by night; my sleep was full of dreams — 
terrible nightmares, exquisite visions, strange scenes 
full of inexplicable reminiscence ; all vague and in- 
coherent, like all men’s dreams that have hitherto 
been ; for I had not yet learned how to dream. 

A vast world, a dread and beautiful chaos, an 
ever-changing kaleidoscope of life, too shadowy and 
dim to leave any lasting impression on the busy, 
waking mind ; with here and there more vivid im- 
ages of terror or delight, that one remembered foi 



NOTEE DAME DE PARIS.’ 


PETER IBBETSON. 


79 


a few hours with a strange wonder and question- 
ing, as Coleridge remembered his Abyssinian maid 
who played upon the dulcimer (a charming and 
most original combination). 

The whole cosmos is in a man’s brains — as much 
of it, at least, as a man’s brains will hold ; perhaps 
it is nowhere else. And when sleep relaxes the will, 
and there are no earthly surroundings to distract 
attention — no duty, pain, or pleasure to compel 
it — riderless Fancy takes the bit in its teeth, and 
the whole cosmos goes mad and has its wild will 
of us. 

Ineffable false joys, unspeakable false terror and 
distress, strange phantoms only seen as in a glass 
darkly, chase each other without rhyme or reason, 
and play hide-and-seek across the twilit field and 
through the dark recesses of our clouded and im- 
perfect consciousness. 

And the false terrors and distress, however un- 
speakable, are no worse than such real terrors and 
distress as are only too often the waking lot of man, 
or even so bad ; but the ineffable false joys transcend 
all possible human felicity while they last, and a 
little while it is ! We wake, and wonder, and recall 
the slight foundation on which such ultra -human 
bliss has seemed to rest. What matters the foun- 
dation if but the bliss be there, and the brain has 
nerves to feel it ? 

Poor human nature, so richly endowed with 
nerves of anguish, so splendidly organized for pain 
and sorrow, is but slenderly equipped for joy. 


80 


PETER IBBETSON. 


What hells have we not invented for the after- 
life! Indeed, what hells we have often made of 
this, both for ourselves and others, and at really 
such a very small cost of ingenuity, after all ! 

Perhaps the biggest and most benighted fools 
have been the best hell-makers. 

Whereas the best of our heavens iS but a poor 
perfunctory conception, for all that the highest and 
cleverest among us have done their very utmost to 
decorate and embellish it, and make life there seem 
worth living. So impossible it is to imagine or 
invent beyond the sphere of our experience. 

Now, these dreams of mine (common to many) of 
the false but ineffable joys, are they not a proof 
that there exist in the human brain hidden capac- 
ities, dormant potentialities of bliss, unsuspected 
hitherto, to be developed some day, perhaps, and 
placed within the reach of all, wakers and sleepers 
alike ? 

A sense of ineffable joy, attainable at will, and 
equal in intensity and duration to (let us say) an 
attack of sciatica, would go far to equalize the sor- 
rowful, one-sided conditions under which we live. 


But there is one thing which, as a school-boy, I 
never dreamed — namely, that I, and one other hold- 
ing a torch, should one day, by common consent, find 
our happiness in exploring these mysterious caverns 
of the brain ; and should lay the foundations of 
order where^only misrule had been before ; and out 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


81 


of all those unreal, waste, and transitory realms of' 
illusion, evolve a real, stable, and habitable world, 
which all who run may reach. 


At last I left school for good, and paid a visit to 
my Uncle Ibbetson in Hopshire, where he was build- 
ing himself a lordly new pleasure-house on his own 
land, as the old one he had inherited a year or two 
ago was no longer good enough for him. 

It was an uninteresting coast on the German 
Ocean, without a rock, or a cliff, or a pier, or a tree ; 
even without cold gray stones for the sea to break 
on — nothing but sand! — a bourgeois kind of sea, 
charmless in its best moods, and not very terrible in 
its wrath, except to a few stray fishermen whom it 
employed, and did not seem to reward very munifi- 
cently. 

Inland it was much the same. One always 
thought of the country as gray, until one looked 
and found that it was green ; and then, if one were 
old and wise, one thought no more about it, and 
turned one’s gaze inward. Moreover, it seemed to 
rain incessantly. 

But it was the country and the sea, after Blue- 
friars and the cloisters — after Newgate, St. Barthol- 
omew, and Smithfield. 

And one could fish and bathe in the sea after all, 
and ride in the country, and even follow the hounds, 
a little later; which would have been a joy beyond 
compare if one had not been blessed with an uncle 
6 


PETER IBBETSON. 


who thought one rode like a French tailor, and told 
one so, and mimicked one, in the presence of charm- 
ing young ladies who rode in perfection. 

In fact, it was heaven itself by comparison, and 
would have remained so longer but for Colonel Ib- 
betson’s efforts to make a gentleman of me — an 
English gentleman. 

What is a gentleman ? It is a grand old name ; 
but what does it mean ? 

At one time, to say of a man that he is a gentle- 
man, is to confer on him the highest title of distinc- 
tion we can think of ; even if we are speaking of 
a prince. 

At another, to say of a man that he is not a gen- 
tleman is almost to stigmatize him as a social out- 
cast, unfit for the company of his kind — even if it is 
only one haberdasher speaking of another. 

Who is a gentleman, and yet who is not f 

The Prince of Darkness was one, and so was Mr. 
John Halifax, if we are to believe those who knew 
them best ; and so was one ‘‘ Pelham,” according to 
the late Sir Edward Bulwer, Earl of Lytton, etc. ; 
and it certainly seemed as if he ought to know. 

And I was to be another, according to Roger Ib- 
betson, Esquire, of Ibbetson Hall, late Colonel of 

the , and it certainly seemed as if he ought to 

know too ! The word was as constantly on his lips 
(when talking to nn^ as though, instead of having 
borne her Majesty’s commission, he were a hair- 
dresser’s assistant who had just come into an inde- 
pendent fortune. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


This course of tuition began pleasantly enough, 
before I left London, by his sending me to his tai- 
lors, who made me several beautiful suits ; especially 
■ an evening suit, which has lasted me for life, alas! 
and these, after the uniform of the gray-coat school, 
were like an initiation to the splendors of freedom 
and manhood. 

Colonel Ibbetson — or Uncle Ibbetson, as I used to 
call him — was my mother’s first cousin ; my grand- 
mother, Mrs. Biddulph, was the sister of his father, 
the late Archdeacon Ibbetson, a very pious, learned, 
and exemplary divine, of good family. 

But his mother (the Archdeacon’s second wife) 
had been the only child and heiress of an immensely 
rich pawnbroker, by name Mendoza ; a Portuguese 
Jew, with a dash of colored blood in his veins be- 
sides, it was said ; and, indeed, this remote African 
strain still showed itself in Uncle Ibbetson’s thick 
lips, wide-open nostrils, and big black eyes with 
yellow whites — and especially in his long, splay, 
lark -heeled feet, which gave both himself and the 
best bootmaker in London a great deal of trouble. 

Otherwise, and in spite of his ugly face, he was 
not without a certain soldier-like air of distinction, 
being very tall and powerfully built. He wore 
stays, and an excellent wig, for he was prematurely 
bald ; and he carried his hat on one side, which (in 
my untutored eyes) made him look very much like 
a “ swell , but not quite like a gentleman. 

To wear your hat jauntily cocked over one eye, 
and yet “ look like a gentleman !” 


84 


PETER IBBETSON. 


It can be done, 
I am told ; and has 
been, and is even 
still ! It is not, per- 
haps, a very lofty 
achievement — but 
such as it is, it re- 
quires a somewhat 
rare combination 
of social and phys- 
ical gifts in the 
Avearer; and the 
possession of either 
Semitic or African 
blood does not 
seem to be one of 
these. 

Colonel Ibbet- 
son could do a lit- 
tle of everything — 
sketch (especially a 
steam - boat on a 
smooth sea, with 
beautiful thick 
smoke reflected in 
the water), play 
the guitar, sing chansonnettes and canzonets, write 
society verses, quote De Musset — 



“POHTKAIT CilAUMA.NT, PORTKAIT DE 
MON AMIE . . 


“Avez-vous vu daus Barcelone 
Une Andalouse au sein bnini?” 


PETER IBBETSON. 


85 


He would speak French whenever he could, even 
to an English ostler, and then recollect himself sud- 
denly, and apologize for his thoughtlessness; and 
even when he spoke English, he would embroider 
it with httle two- penny French tags and idioms: 
“ Pour tout potage “ Nous avons change tout 
cela “ Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galere 
etc. ; or Italian, ‘‘ Chi lo sa “ Pazienza !” ‘‘ Ahime !” 
or even Latin, ‘‘Eheu fugaces,” and “Yidi tan- 
tum !” for he had been an Eton boy. It must have 
been very cheap Latin, for I could always under- 
stand it myself ! He drew the line at German and 
Greek ; fortunately, for so do I. He was a bach- 
elor, and his domestic arrangements had been ir- 
regular, and I will not dwell upon them ; but his 
house, as far as it went, seemed to promise better 
things. 

His architect, Mr. Lintot, an extraordinary little 
man, full of genius and quite self-made, became my 
friend and taught me to smoke, and drink gin and 
water. 

He did his work well ; but of an evening he used 
to drink more than was good for him, and rave 
about Shelley, his only poet. He would recite “ The 
Skylark ’’ (his only poem) with uncertain and a 
rather cockney accent — 

“’Ail to thee blythe sperrit ! 

Bird thou never wert, 

That from ’eaven, or near it 
Po’rest thy full ’eart 

In profuse strains of hunpremeditated hart.” 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


As the evening wore on his recitations became 
“ low comic/' and quite admirable for accent and 
humor. He could imitate all the actors in London 
(none of which I had seen) so well as to transport 
me with delight and wonder ; and all this with no- 
body but me for an audience, as we sat smoking 
and drinking together in his room at the “ Ibbetson 
Arms.” 

I felt grateful to adoration. 

Later still, he would become sentimental again ; 
and dilate to me on the joys of his wedded life, on 
the extraordinary intellect and beauty of Mrs. Lin- 
tot. First he would describe to me the beauties of 
her mind, and compare her to L. E. L.” and Felicia 
Hemans. Then he would fall back on her physical 
perfections; there was nobody worthy to be com- 
pared to her in these — but I draw the veil. 

He was very egotistical. Whatever he did, what- 
ever he liked, whatever belonged to him, was better 
than anything else in the world ; and he was clev- 
erer than any one else, except Mrs. Lintot, to whom 
he yielded the palm ; and then he would cheer up 
and become funny again. 

In fact his self-satisfaction was quite extraordi- 
nary ; and what is more extraordinary still, it was 
not a bit offensive — at least, to me ; perhaps because 
he was such a tiny httle man ; or because much of 
this vanity of his seemed to have no very solid 
foundation, for it was not of the gifts I most ad- 
mired in him that he was vainest; or because it 
came out most when he was most tipsy, and genial 


PETER IBBETSON. 


87 


tipsiness redeems so much ; or else because he was 
most vain about things I should never have been 
vain about myself ; and the most unpardonable 
vanity in others is that which is secretly our own, 
whether we are conscious of it or not. 



“l FELT GRATEFUL TO ADORATION.” 


And then he was the first funny man I had ever 
met. What a gift it is! He was always funny 
when he tried to be, whether one laughed with him 
or at him, and I loved him for it. Nothing on earth 
is more pathetically pitiable than the funny man 
when he still tries and succeeds no longer. 

The moment Lintot’s vein was exhausted, he had 


88 


PETER IBBETSON. 


the sense to leave off and begin to cry, which was 
still funny ; and then I would help him up-stairs to 
his room, and he would jump out of his clothes and 
into his bed and be asleep in a second, with the 
tears still trickling down his little nose — and even 
that was funny ! 

But next morning he was stern and alert and in- 
defatigable, as though gin and poetry and conjugal 
love had never been, and fun were a capital crime. 

Uncle Ibbetson thought highly of him as an archi- 
tect, but not otherwise ; he simply made use of him. 

“ He’s a terrible little snob, of course, and hasn’t 
got an h in his head” (as if that were a capital 
crime); “but he’s very clever — look at that cam- 
panile — and then he’s cheap, my boy, cheap.” 

There were several fine houses in fine parks not 
very far from Ibbetson Hall; but although Uncle 
Ibbetson appeared in name and wealth and social 
position to be on a par with their owners, he was 
not on terms of intimacy with any of them, or even 
of acquaintance, as far as I know, and spoke of 
them with contempt, as barbarians — people with 
whom he had nothing in common. Perhaps they, 
too, had found out this incompatibility, especially 
the ladies ; for, school-boy as I was, I was not long 
in discovering that his manner towards those of the 
other sex was not always such as to please either 
them or their husbands or fathers or brothers. The 
way he looked at them was enough. Indeed, most 
of his lady friends and acquaintances through fife 
had belonged to the corjps de lalUt^ the demi-monde^ 


PETER IBBETSON. 


89 


etc. — not, I should imagine, the best school of man- 
ners in the world. 

On the other hand, he was very friendly with 
some families in the town; the doctor’s, the rec- 
tor’s, his own agent’s (a broken-down brother oificer 
and bosom friend, who had ceased to love him since 
he received his pay) ; and he used to take Mr. Lin- 
tot and me to parties there ; and he was the life of 
those parties. 

He sang little French songs, with no voice, but 
quite a good French accent, and told little anecdotes 
with no particular point, but in French and Italian 
(so that the point was never missed) ; and we all 
laughed and admired without quite knowing why, 
except that he was the lord of the manor. 

On these festive occasions poor Lintot’s confi- 
dence and power of amusing seemed to desert him 
altogether ; he sat glum in a corner. 

Though a radical and a sceptic, and a peace-at- 
any-price man, he was much impressed by the social 
status of the army and the church. 

Of the doctor, a very clever and accomplished 
person, and the best educated man for miles around, 
he thought little ; but the rector, the colonel, the 
poor captain, even, now a mere land-steward, seemed 
to fill him with respectful awe. And for his pains 
he was cruelly snubbed by Mrs. Captain and Mrs. 
Hector and their plain daughters, who little guessed 
what talents he concealed, and thought him quite 
a common little man, hardly fit to turn over the 
leaves of their music. 


90 


PETER IBBETSON. 


It soon became pretty evident that Ibbetson was 
very much smitten with a Mrs. Deane, the widow 
of a brewer, a very handsome woman indeed, in her 
own estimation and mine, and everybody else’s, ex- 
cept Mr. Lintot’s, who said, Pooh, you should see^ 
my wife !” 

Her mother, Mrs. Glyn, excelled us all in her ad- 
miration of Colonel Ibbetson. 

For instance, Mrs. Deane would play some com- 
mon little waltz of the cheap kind that is never 
either remembered or forgotten, and Mrs. Glyn 
would exclaim, Is not that lovely 

And Ibbetson would say : ‘‘ Charming! charming ! 
Whose is it ? Kossini’s ? Mozart’s ?” 

Why, no, my dear colonel. Don’t you remem- 
ber ? Ms your own 

Ah, so it is ! I had quite forgotten.” And 
general laughter and applause would burst forth at 
such a natural mistake on the part of our great 
man. 

Well, I could neither play nor sing, and found it 
far easier by this time to speak English than French, 
especially to English people who were ignorant of 
any language but their own. Yet sometimes Colo- 
nel Ibbetson would seem quite proud of me. 

“ Deux metres, bien sonnes 1” he would say, allud- 
ing to my stature, “ et le profil d’Antinoiis 1” which 
he would pronounce without the two little dots on 
the u. 

And afterwards, if he had felt his evening a 
pleasant one, if he had sung all he knew, if Mr^. 







92 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


Deane had been more than usually loving and self- 
surrendering, and I had distinguished mj^self by 
skilfully turning over the leaves when her mother 
had played the piano, he would tell me, as we 
walked home together, that I “ did credit to his 
name, and that I would make an excellent figure 
in the world as soon as I had decrasse myself ; that 
I must get another dress-suit from his tailor, just an 
eighth of an inck longer in the tails ; that I should 
have a commission in his old regiment (the Elev^en- 
teenth Royal Bounders), a deuced crack cavalry reg- 
iment; and see the world and break a few hearts 
(it is not for nothing that our friends have pretty 
wives and sisters) ; and finally marry some beauti- 
ful young heiress of title, and make a home for 
him when he was a poor solitary old fellow. Yery 
little would do for him : a crust of bread, a glass of 
wine and water, and a clean napkin, a couple of 
rooms, and an old piano and a few good books. 
For, of course, Ibbetson Hall would be mine and 
every penny he possessed in the world.’’ 

All this in confidential French — lest the very 
clouds should hear us— and with the familiar thee 
and thou of blood-relationship, which I did not care 
to return. 

It did not seem to bode very serious intentions 
towards Mrs. Deane, and would scarcely have 
pleased her mother. 

Or else, if something had crossed him, and Mrs. 
Deane had flirted outrageously with somebody else, 
and he had not been asked to sing (or somebody 


PETER IBBETSON. 


93 


else had), he would assure me in good round Eng- 
lish that I was the most infernal lout that ever dis- 
graced a drawing-room, or ate a man out of house 
and home, and that he was sick and ashamed of 
me. “ Why can’t you sing, you d — d French milk- 
sop? That d — d roulade -monger of a father of 
yours could sing fast enough, if he could do nothing 
else, confound him ! Why can’t you talk French, 
you infernal British booby ? Why can’t you hand 
round the tea and muffins, confound you ! Why, 
twice Mrs. Glyn dropped her pocket-handkerchief 
and had to pick it up herself ! What, ‘ at the oth- 
er end of the room,’ were you? Well, you should 
have skipped across the room, and picked it up, and 
handed it to her with a pretty speech, like a gentle- 
man ! When I was your age I was always on the 
lookout for ladies’ pocket-handkerchiefs to drop — 
or their fans ! I never missed one 

Then he would take me out to shoot with him 
(for it was quite essential that an English gentle- 
man should be a sportsman) — a terrible ordeal to 
both of us. 

A snipe that I did not want to kill in the least 
would sometimes rise and fly right and left like a 
flash of lightning, and I would miss it — always; 
and he would d — n me for a son of a confounded 
French Micawber, and miss the next himself, and 
get into a rage and thrash his dog, a pointer that 
I was very fond of. Once he thrashed her so cruelly 
that I saw scarlet, and nearly yielded to the impulse 
of emptying both my barrels in his broad back. If 


94 


tETEE IBBETSON. 


I had done so it would have passed for a mere 
mishap, after all, and saved many future compli- 
cations. 

One day he pointed out to me a small bird peck- 
ing in a field — an extremely pretty bird — I think it 
was a skylark — and whispered to me in his most 
sarcastic manner — 

“ Look here, you Peter without any salt, do you 
think, if you were to kneel down and rest your gun 
comfortably on this gate without making a noise, 
and take a careful aim, you could manage to shoot 
that bird sitting? I’ve heard of some Frenchmen 
who would be equal to thatP^ 

I said I would try, and, resting my gun as he told 
me, I carefully aimed a couple of yards above the 
bird’s head, and mentally ejaculating, 

“ ’Ail to thee blythe sperrit !” 

1 fired both barrels (for fear of any after-mishap to 
Ibbetson), and the bird naturally flew away. 

After this he never took me out shooting with 
him again ; and, indeed, I had discovered to my dis- 
comfiture that I, the friend and admirer and would- 
be emulator of Hatty Bumppo the Deerslayer, I, 
the familiar of the last of the Mohicans and his 
scalp-lifting father, could not bear the sight of blood 
— least of all, of blood shed by myself, and for my 
own amusement. 

The only beast that ever fell to my gun during 


Peter ibbetson. 


95 



AIL TO THEE BLYTHE SPERRIT !’ 


those shootings with Uncle Ibbetson was a young 
rabbit, and that more by accident than design, al- 
though I did not tell Uncle Ibbetson so. 

As I picked it off the ground, and felt its poor 
little warm narrow chest, and the last beats of its 



96 


I»ETER IBBETSON. 


heart under its weak ribs, and saw the blood on its 
fur, I was smitten with pity, shame, and remorse ; 
and settled with myself that I would find some 
other road to English gentlemanhood than the slay- 
ing of innocent 
wild things whose 
happy life seems so 
well worth living. 

I must eat them, 
I suppose, but I 
would never shoot 
them any more ; 
my hands, at least, 
should be clean of 
blood hencefor- 
ward. 

Alas, the irony 
of fate ! 


The upshot of all 
this was that he 
confided to Mrs. 
Deane the task of 
licking his cub of a 
nephew into shape. 
She took me in hand with right good-will, and be- 
gan by teaching me how to dance, that I might 
dance with her at the coming hunt ball ; and I did 
so nearly all night, to my infinite, joy and triumph, 
and to the disgust of Colonel Ibbetson, who could 



PETER IBBETSON. 


97 


dance much better than I — to the disgust, indeed, 
of many smart men in red coats and black, for she 
was considered the belle of the evening. 

Of course I fell, or fancied I fell, in love with 
her. To her mother’s extreme distress, she gave 
me every encouragement, partly for fun, partly to 
annoy Colonel Ibbetson, whom she had apparently 
grown to hate. And, indeed, from the way he often 
spoke of her to me (this trainer of English gentle- 
men), he well deserved that she should hate him. 
He never had the slightest intention of marrying 
her — that is certain ; and yet he had made her the 
talk of the place. 

And here I may state that Ibbetson was one of 
those singular men who go through life afflicted 
with the mania that they are fatally irresistible to 
women. 

He was never weary of pursuing them — not 
through any special love of gallantry for its own 
sake, I believe, but from the mere wish to appear 
as a Don Giovanni in the eyes of others. Nothing 
made him happier than to be seen whispering mys- 
teriously in corners with the prettiest woman in 
the room. He did not seem to perceive that for 
one woman silly or vain or vulgar enough to be 
flattered by his idiotic persecution, a dozen would 
loathe the very sight of him, and show it plainly 
enough. 

This vanity had increased with years and as- 
sumed a very dangerous form. He became indis- 
creet, and, more disastrous still, he told lies ! The 
1 


98 


PETER IBBETSON. 


very dead — the honored and irreproachable dead — 
were not even safe in their graves. It was his re- 
venge for unforgotten slights. 

He who kisses and tells, he who tells even 
though he has not kissed — what can be said for 
him, what should be done to him? 

Ibbetson one day expiated this miserable craze 
with his life, and the man who took it — more by 
accident than design, it is true — has not yet found 
it in his heart to feel either compunction or regret. 


So there was a great row between Ibbetson and 

myself. He d d and confounded and abused me 

in every way, and my father before me, and finally 
struck me; and I had sufficient self-command not to 
strike him back, but left him then and there with 
as much dignity as I could muster. 

Thus unsuccessfully ended my brief experience of 
English country life — a little hunting and shooting 
and fishing, a little dancing and flirting ; just enough 
of each to show me I was unfit for all. 

A bitter-sweet remembrance, full of humiliation, 
but not altogether without charm. There was the 
beauty of sea and open sky and changing country 
weather ; and the beauty of Mrs. Deane, who made 
a fool of me to revenge herself on Colonel Ibbetson 
for trying to make a fool of her, whereby he became 
the laughing-stock of the neighborhood for at least 
nine days. 

And I revenged myself on both — heroically, 


PETER IBBETSON. 


99 


as I thought ; though where the heroism comes 
in, and where the revenge, does not appear quite 
patent. 

For I ran away' to London, and enlisted in her 
Majesty’s Household Cavalry, where I remained a 
twelvemonth, and was happy enough, and learned a 
great deal more good than harm. 

Then I was bought out and articled to Mr. Lintot, 
architect and surveyor : a conclave of my relatives 
agreeing to allow me ninety pounds a year for three 
years ; then all hands were to be washed of* me 
altogether.* 


So I took a small lodging in Pentonville, to be 
near Mr. Lintot, and worked hard at my new pro- 
fession for three years, during which nothing of 
importance occurred in my outer life. After this 
Lintot employed me as a salaried clerk, and I do 
not think he had any reason to complain of me, nor 
did he make any complaint. I was worth my hire, 
I think, and something over ; which I never got and 
never asked for. 

* Note . — I have thought it better to leave out, in its entirety, my 
cousin’s account of his short career as a private soldier. It consists 
principally of personal descriptions that are not altogether unpreju- 
diced; he seems never to have quite liked those who were placed in 
authority above him, either at school or in the army. 

But one of my husband’s intimate friends. General , who was 

cornet in the Life Guards in my poor cousin’s time, writes me that “ he 
remembers him well, as far and away the tallest and handsomest lad 
in the whole regiment, of immense physical strength, unimpeachable 
good conduct, and a thorough gentleman from top to toe.” 

Madge Plunket. 


100 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Nor did I complain of him ; for with all his little 
foibles of vanity, irascibility, and egotism, and a 


certain close-fisted- 
ness, he was a good 
fellow and a very 
clever one. 



His paragon of 
a wife was by no 
means the beautiful 
person he had made 
her out to be, nor 
did anybody but he 
seem to think her so. 


She was a little 
older than himself ; 
very large and mas- 


IhNTO.NVII.LE. 


sive, with stern but not irregular features, and a 
very high forehead; she had a slight tendency to 
baldness, and colorless hair that she wore in an au- 
stere curl on each side of her face, and a menacing 
little topknot on her occiput. She had been a Uni- 
tarian and a governess, was fond of good long words, 
like Dr. Johnson, and very censorious. 

Her husband’s occasional derelictions in the mat- 
ter of grammar and accent must have been very 
trying to her ! 

She knew her own mind about everything under 
the sun, and expected that other people should 
know it, too, and be of the same mind as herself. 
And yet she was not proud ; indeed, she was a very 
dragon of humility, and had raised injured meek- 


PETER IBBETSON. 


101 


ness to the rank of a militant virtue. And well she 
knew how to be master and mistress in her own 
house 1 

But with all this she was an excellent wife to 
Mr. Lintot and a devoted mother to his children, 
who were very plain and subdued (and adored their 
father) ; so that Lintot, who thought her Yenus and 
Diana and Minerva in one, was the happiest man in 
all Pentonville. 

And, on the whole, she was kind and considerate 
to me, and I always did my best to please her. 

Moreover (a gift for which I could never be too 
grateful), she presented me with an old square piano, 
which had belonged to her mother, and had done 
duty in her school-room, till Lintot gave her a new 
one (for she was a highly cultivated musician of the 
severest classical type). It became the principal 
ornament of my small sitting-room, which it nearly 
filled, and on it I tried to learn my notes, and would 
pick out with one finger the old beloved melodies 
my father used to sing, and my mother play on the 
harp. 

To sing myself was, it seems, out of the question ; 
my voice (which I trust was not too disagreeable 
when I was content merely to speak) became as that 
of a bull-frog under a blanket whenever I strove to 
express myself in song ; my larynx refused to pro- 
duce the notes I held so accurately in my mind, and 
the result was disaster. 

On the other hand, in my mind I could sing most 
beautifully. Once on a rainy day, inside an Isling- 


102 


PETER IBBETSON. 


ton omnibus, I mentally sang “Adelaida ” with the 
voice of Mr. Sims Keeves — an unpardonable liberty 
to take ; and although it is not for me to say so, I 
sang it even better than he, for I made myself shed 
tears — so much so that a kind old gentleman sitting 
opposite seemed to feel for me very much. 

I also had the faculty of remembering any tune 
I once heard, and would whistle it correctly ever 
after — even one of Uncle Ibbetson’s waltzes ! 

As an instance of this, worth recalling, one night 
I found myself in Guildford Street, walking in the 
same direction as another belated individual (only 
on the other side of the road), who, just as the moon 
came out of a cloud, was moved to whistle. 

He whistled exquisitely, and, what was more, he 
whistled quite the most beautiful tune I had ever 
heard. I felt all its changes and modulations, its 
majors and minors, just as if a whole band had been 
there to play the accompaniment, so cunning and 
expressive a whistler was he. 

And so entranced was I that I made up my mind 
to cross over and ask him what it was — “ Your mel- 
ody or your life !” But he suddenly stopped at Ho. 
48, and let himself in with his key before I could 
prefer my humble request. 

Well, I went whistling that tune all next day, 
and for many days after, without ever finding out 
what it was ; till one evening, happening to be at 
the Lintots, I asked Mrs. Lintot (who happened to 
be at the piano) if she knew it, and began to 
whistle it once more. To my delight and surprise 


PETER IBBETSON. 


105 


she straightway accompanied it all through (a won- 
derful condescension in so severe a purist), and I did 
not make a single wrong note. 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Lintot, “it’s a pretty, catchy lit- 
tle tune — of a kind to achieve immediate popular- 
ity.” 

Now, I apologize humbly to the reader for this 
digression ; but if he be musical he will forgive 
me, for that tune was the “ Serenade ” of Schubert, 
and I had never even heard Schubert’s name ! 

And having thus duly apologized, I will venture 
to transgress and digress anew, and mention here a 
kind of melodic malady, a singular obsession to 
which I am subject, and which I will call uncon- 
scious musical cerebration. 

I am never without some tune running in my head 
— never for a moment ; not that I am always aware 
of it ; existence would be insupportable if I were. 
What part of my brain sings it, or rather in what 
part of my brain it sings itself, I cannot imagine — 
probably in some useless corner full of cobwebs and 
lumber that is fit for nothing else. 

But it never leaves off ; now it is one tune, now 
another; now a song without words, now with; 
sometimes it is near the surface, so to speak, and I 
am vaguely conscious of it as I read or work, or 
talk or think ; sometimes to make sure it is there I 
have to dive for it deep into myself, and I never 
fail to find it after a while, and bring it up to the 
top. It is the “Carnival of Yenice,” let us say; 
then I let it sink again, and it changes without my 


104 


PETER IBBETSON. 


knowing; so that when I take another dive the 
^‘Carnival of Venice ” has become ‘‘ II Mio Tesoro,” 
or the “ Marseillaise,” or “ Pretty Little Polly Per- 
kins of Paddington Green.” And Heaven knows 
what tunes, unheard and unperceived, this internal 
barrel-organ has been grinding meanwhile. 

Sometimes it intrudes itself so persistently as to 
become a nuisance, and the only way to get rid of it 
is to whistle or sing myself. For instance, I may be 
mentally reciting for my solace and delectation some 
beloved lyric like ‘‘The Waterfowl,” or “Tears, 
Idle Tears,” or “ Break, Break, Break ;” and all the 
while, between the lines, this fiend of a subcere- 
bral vocalist, like a wandering minstrel in a distant 
square, insists on singing, “ Cheer, Boys, Cheer,” or, 
“ Tommy, make room for your uncle ” (tunes I can- 
not abide), with words, accompaniment, and all, com- 
plete, and not quite so refined an accent as I could 
wish ; so that I have to leave off my recitation and 
whistle “J’ai dti Bon Tabac” in quite a different 
key to exorcise it. 

But this, at least, I will say for this never still 
small voice of mine : its intonation is always perfect ; 
it keeps ideal time, and its quality, though rather 
thin and somewhat nasal and quite peculiar, is not 
unsympathetic. Sometimes, indeed (as in that Is- 
lington omnibus), I can compel it to imitate, d s^y 
meprendre, the tones of some singer I have recently 
heard, and thus make for myself a ghostly music 
which is not to be despised. 

Occasionally, too, and quite unbidden, it would 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


105 


warble little impromptu inward melodies of my 
own composition, which often seemed to me ex- 
tremely pretty, old-fashioned, and quaint ; but one 
is not a fair judge of one’s own productions, espe- 
cially during the heat of inspiration ; and I had not 
the means of recording them, as I had never learned 
the musical notes. What the world has lost ! 

[N’ow whose this small voice was I did not find 
out till many years later, for it was not mine ! 


In spite of such rare accomplishments and re- 
sources within myself, I was not a happy or con- 
tented young man; nor had my discontent in it 
anything of the divine. 

I disliked my profession, for which I felt no 
particular aptitude, and would fain have followed 
another — poetry, science, literature, music, paint- 
ing, sculpture; for all of which I most unblush- 
ingly thought myself better fitted by the gift of 
nature. 

I disliked Pentonville, which, although clean, 
virtuous, and respectable, left much to be desired 
on the score of shape, color, romantic tradition, and 
local charm ; and I would sooner have lived any- 
where else : in the Champs-Elysees, let us say — yes, 
indeed, even on the fifth branch of the third tree 
on the left-hand side as you leave the Arc de Tri- 
omphe, like one of those classical heroes in Henri 
Murger’s Yie de Boheme. 

1 disliked my brother apprentices, and did not 


106 


PETER IBBETSON. 


get on well with them, especially a certain very 
clever but vicious and deformed youth called Jud- 
kins, who seemed to have conceived an aversion for 
me from the first; he is now an associate of the 
Koyal Academy. They thought I gave myself airs 
because I did not share in their dissipations; such 
dissipations as I could have afforded would have 
been cheap and nasty indeed. 

Yet such pothouse dissipation seemed to satisfy 
them, since they took not only a pleasure in it, but 
a pride. 

They even took a pride in a sick headache, and 
liked it, if it were the result of a debauch on the 
previous night ; and were as pompously mock- 
modest about a black eye, got in a squabble at the 
Argyll Eooms, as if it had been the Victoria Cross. 
To pass the night in a police cell was such glory 
that it was worth while pretending they had done 
so when it was untrue. 

They looked upon me as a muff, a milksop, and a 
prig, and felt the greatest contempt for me ; and if 
they did not openly show it, it was only because 
they were not quite so fond of black eyes as they 
made out. 

So I left them to their inexpensive joys, and be- 
took myself to pursuits of my own, among others 
to the cultivation of my body, after methods I had 
learned in the Life Guards. I belonged to a gym- 
nastic and fencing and boxing club, of which I was 
a most assiduous frequenter; a more persevering 
dumb-beller and Indian -clubber never was, and I 


PETER IBBETSON. 


307 


became in time an all-round athlete, as wiry and 
lean as a greyhound, just under fifteen stone, and 
four inches over six feet in height, which was con- 
sidered very tall thirty years ago ; especially in Pen- 
ton ville, where the distinction often brought me 
more contumely than respect. 

Altogether a most formidable person ; but that I 
was of a timid nature, afraid to hurt, and the peace- 
fulest creature in the world. 

My old love for slums revived, and I found out 
and haunted the worst in London. They were very 
good slums, but they were not the slums of Paris — 
they manage these things better in France. 

Even Cow Cross (where the Metropolitan Kail- 
way now runs between King’s Cross and Farring- 
don Street) — Cow Cross, that whilom labyrinth of 
slaughter-houses, gin-shops, and thieves’ dens, with 
the famous Fleet Ditch running underneath it all 
the while, lacked the fascination and mystery of 
mediaeval romance. There were no memories of 
such charming people as Le roi des Truands and 
Gringoire and Esmeralda ; with a sigh one had to 
fall back on visions of Fagin and Bill Sykes and 
Kancy. 

Quelle degringolade ! 

And as to the actual denizens ! One gazed with 
a dull, wondering pity at the poor, pale, rickety 
children; the slatternly, coarse women who never 
smiled (except when drunk); the dull, morose, mis- 
erable men. How they lacked the grace of French 
deformity, the eg^se and lightness of French deprav- 


108 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


ity, the sympathetic distinction of French grotesque- 
ness. How unterrible they were, who preferred the 
fist to the noiseless and insidious knife ! who fought 
with their hands instead of their feet, quite loyally ; 
and reserved the kicks of their hobnailed boots for 
their recalcitrant wives ! 

And then there was no Morgue ; one missed one’s 
Morgue badly. 

And Smithfield ! It would split me truly to the 
heart (as M. le Major used to say) to watch the poor 
beasts that came on certain days to make a short 
station in that hideous cattle-market, on their way 
to the slaughter-house. 

What bludgeons have I seen descend on beauti- 
ful, bewildered, dazed, meek eyes, so thickly fringed 
against the country sun ; on soft, moist, tender nos- 
trils that clouded the poisonous reek with a fra- 
grance of the far-off fields ! What torture of silly 
sheep and genially cynical pigs ! 

The very dogs seemed demoralized, and brutal as 
their masters. And there one day I had an advent- 
ure, a dirty bout at fisticuffs, most humiliating in 
the end for me, and which showed that chivalry is 
often its own reward, like virtue, even when the 
chivalrous are young and big and strong, and have 
learned to box. 

A brutal young drover wantonly kicked a sheep, 
and, as I thought, broke her hind-leg, and in my 
indignation I took him by the ear and flung him 
round onto a heap of mud and filth. He rose and 
squared at me in a most plucky fashion ; he hardly 


PETER IBBETSON. 


109 


came up to my chin, and I refused to fight him. A 
crowd collected round us, and as I tried to explain 
to the by-standers the cause of our quarrel, he man- 
aged to hit me in the face with a very muddy fist. 

“Bravo, little ’un!” shouted the crowd, and he 
squared up again. I felt wretchedly ashamed and 
warded off all his blows, telling him that I could 
not hit him or I should kill him. 

“Yah!” shouted the crowd again; “go it, little 
un 1 Let dm ’ave it I The long un’s showing the 
white feather,” etc., and finally I gave him a slight 
backhander that made his nose bleed and seemed 
to demoralize him completely. “ Yah !” shouted the 
crowd ; “ fit one yer own size!” 

I looked round in despair and rage, and picking 
out the biggest man I could see, said, “Are you big 
enough ?” The crowd roared with laughter. 

“ Well, guv’ner, I dessay I might do at a pinch,” 
he replied ; and I tried to slap his face, but missed 
it, and received such a tremendous box on the ear 
that I was giddy for a second or two, and when I re- 
covered I found him still grinning at me. I tried 
to hit him again and again, but always missed ; and 
at last, without doing me any particular damage, he 
laid me flat three times running onto the very heap 
where I had flung the drover, the crowd applauding 
madly. Dazed, hatless, and panting, and covered 
with filth, I stared at him in hopeless impotence. 
He put out his hand, and said, “ You’re all right, 
ain’t yer, guv’ner ? I ’ope I ’aven’t ’urt yer ! My 
name’s Tom Sayers. If you’d a ’it me, I should ’a’ 


no 


PETER IBBETSON. 


gone down like a ninepin, and I ain’t so sure as I 
should ever ’ave got up again.” 

He was to become the most famous fighting man 
in England ! 

I wrung his hand and thanked him, and offered 
him a sovereign, which he refused ; and then he led 
me into a room in a public-house close by, where he 
washed and brushed me down, and insisted on treat- 
ing me to a glass of brandy -and- water. 

I have had a fondness for fighting-men ever since, 
and a respect for the noble science I had never felt 
before. He was many inches shorter than I, and 
did not look at all the Hercules he was. 

He told me I was the strongest built man for a 
youngster that he had ever seen, barring that I was 
‘‘ rather leggy.” I do not know if he was sincere or 
not, but no possible compliment could have pleased 
me more. Such is the vanity of youth. 

And here, although it savors somewhat of vain- 
gloriousness, I cannot resist the temptation of re- 
lating another adventure of the same kind, but in 
which I showed to greater advantage. 

It was on a boxing-day (oddly enough), and I was 
returning with Lin tot and one of his boys from a 
walk in the Highgate Fields. As we plodded our 
dirty way homeward through the Caledonian Hoad 
we were stopped by a crowd outside a public-house. 
A gigantic drayman (they always seem bigger than 
they really are) was squaring up to a poor drunken 
lout of a navvy not half his size, who had been put 
up to fight him, and who was quite incapable of even 





113 


PETER IBBETSON. 


an attempt at self-defence ; he could scarcely lift his 
arms. I thought at first it was only horse-play ; and 
as little Joe Lintot wanted to see, I put him up on 
my shoulder, just as the drayman, who had been 
drinking, but was not drunk, and had a most fiend- 
ishly brutal face, struck the poor tipsy wretch with 
all his might between the eyes, and felled him (it 
was like pole-axing a bullock), to the delight of the 
crowd. 

Little Joe, a very gentle and sensitive boy, began 
to cry ; and his father, who had the pluck of a bull- 
terrier, wanted to interfere, in spite of his diminu- 
tive stature. I was also beside myself with indig- 
nation, and pulling off my coat and hat, which I gave 
to Lintot, made my way to the drayman, who was 
offering to fight any three men in the crowd, an offer 
that met with no response. 

“ then, you cowardly skunk !” I said, tuck- 
ing up my shirt sleeves ; stand up, and 1 will knock 
every tooth down your ugly throat.” 

His face went the colors of a mottled Stilton 
cheese, and he asked what I meddled with him for. 
A ring formed itself, and I felt the sympathy of 
the crowd with me this time — a very agreeable sen- 
sation ! 

‘‘ How, then, up with your arms ! I’m going to 
kill you !” 

“7 ain’t going to fight you, mister; I ain’t going 
to fight nobody. Just you let me alone !” 

Oh yes, you are, or else you’re going down on 
your marrow-bones to beg pardon for being a bru- 


PETER IBBETSON. 


113 


tal, cowardly skunk and I gave liim a slap on the 
face that rang like a pistol-shot — a most finished, 
satisfactory, and successful slap this time. My fin- 
ger-tips tingle at the bare remembrance. 

He tried to escape, but was held opposite to me. 
He began to snivel and whimper, and said he had 
never meddled witli me, and asked what should I 
meddle with him for ? 

“ Then down on your knees — quick — this instant !” 
and I made as if I were going to begin serious busi- 
ness at once, and no mistake. 

So down he plumped on his knees, and there he 
actually fainted from sheer excess of emotion. 

As I was helped on with my coat, I tasted, for 
once in my life the sweets of popularity, and knew 
what it was to be the idol of a mob. 

Little Joey Lintot and his brothers and sisters, 
who had never held me in any particular regard 
before that I knew of, worshipped me from that 
day forward. 

And I should be insincere if I did not confess 
that on that one occasion I was rather pleased with 
myself, although the very moment I stood opposite 
the huge, hulking, beer-sodden brute (who had look- 
ed so formidable from afar) I felt, with a not un- 
pleasant sense of relief, that he did not stand a 
chance. He was only big, and even at that I beat 
him. 

The real honors of the day belonged to Lintot, 
who, I am convinced, was ready to act the David 
to that Goliath. He had the real stomach for fight- 
8 


114 


PETEE IBBETSOIT. 


ing, which I lacked, as very tall men are often said 
to do. . 

And that, perhaps, is why I have made so much 
of my not very wonderful prowess on that occasion ; 
not, indeed, that I am physically a coward — at least, 
I do not think so. If I thought I were I should 
avow it with no more shame than I should avow 
that I had a bad digestion, or a weak heart, which 
makes cowards of us all. 

It is that I hate a row, and violence, and blood- 
shed, even from a nose — any nose, either my own 
or my neighbor’s. 


There are slums at the east end of London that 
many fashionable people know something of by this 
time ; I got to know them by heart. In addition to 
the charm of the mere slum, there was the eternal 
fascination of the seafaring element ; of Jack ashore 
— a lovable creature who touches nothing but what 
he adorns it in his own peculiar fashion. 

I constantly haunted the docks, where the smell 
of tar and the sight of ropes and masts filled me 
with unutterable longings for the sea — for distant 
lands — for anywhere but where it was my fate to be. 

I talked to ship captains and mates and sailors, 
and heard many marvellous tales, as the reader may 
well believe, and framed for myself visions of cloud- 
less skies, and sapphire seas, and coral reefs, and 
groves of spice, and dusky youths in painted plu- 
mage roving, and friendly isles where a lovely half- 


PETER IBBETSON. 


115 


clad, barefooted J^euha Tvould wave her torch, and 
lead me, her Torquil, by the hand through caverns 
of bliss ! 

Especially did I haunt a wharf by London Bridge, 
from whence two steamers— the Seine and the Dol- 
jphin, I believe— started on alternate days for Bou- 
logne-sur-Mer. 



THE BOULOGiNE STEAMER. 


116 


PETER IBBETSON. 


I used to watch the happy passengers bound for 
France, some of them, in their holiday spirits, al- 
leady fraternizing together on the sunny deck, and 
fussing with camp-stools and magazines and novels 
and bottles of bitter beer, or retiring before the 
funnel to smoke the pipe of peace. 

The sound of the boiler getting up steam — what 
delicious music it was ! Would it ever get up steam 
for me ? The very smell of the cabin, the very feel 
of the brass gangway and the brass-bound, oil-clothed 
steps were delightful ; and down-stairs, on the snowy 
cloth, were the cold beef and ham, the beautiful fresh 
mustard, the bottles of pale ale and stout. Oh, hap. 
py travellers, who could afford all this, and France 
into the bargain ! 

Soon would a large white awning make the after- 
deck a paradise, from which, by-and-by, to watch 
the quickly gliding panorama of the Thames. The 
bell would sound for non-passengers like me to go 
ashore — “ Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galere 
as Uncle Ibbetson would have said. The steamer, 
disengaging itself from the wharf with a pleasant 
yohoing of manly throats and a slow, intermittent 
plashing of the paddle-wheels, would carefully pick 
its sunny, eastward way among the small craft of 
the riyer, while a few handkerchiefs were waved 
in a friendly, make-believe farewell — auf wieder- 
sehen ! 

Oh, to stand by that unseasonably sou’-westered 
man at the wheel, and watch St. Paul’s and London 
Bridge and the Tower of London fade out of sight 


PETER IBBETSON. 


117 


— never, never to see them again. No auf wieder- 
sehen for me ! 

Sometimes I would turn my footsteps westward 
and fill my hungry, jealous eyes with a sight of the 
gay summer procession in Hyde Park, or listen to 
the band in Kensington Gardens, and see beautiful, 
well - dressed women, and hear their sweet, refined 
voices and happy laughter; and a longing would 
come into my heart more passionate than my long- 
ing for the sea and France and distant lands, and 
quite as unutterable. I would even forget Neuha 
and her torch. 

After this it was a dreary downfall to go and dine 
for tenpence all by myself, and finish up with a book 
at my solitary lodgings in Pentonville. The book 
would not let itself be read ; it sulked and had to 
be laid down, for “beautiful woman ! beautiful girl!” 
spelled themselves between me and the printed page. 
Translate me those words into French, O ye who 
can even render Shakespeare into French Alexan- 
drines — “ Belle femme ? Belle fiUe Ha 1 ha 1 

If you want to get as near it as you can, you will 
have to write, “Belle Anglaise,” or “Belle Ameri- 
caine only then will you be understood, ,even in 
France ! 

Ah 1 elle etait bien belle, Madame Seraskier ! 

At other times, more happily inspired, I would 
slake my thirst for nature by long walks into the 
country. Hampstead was my Passy — the Leg-of- 
Mutton Pond my Mare d’Auteuil; Kichmond was 
my St. Cloud, with Kow Gardens for a Bois do BoU' 


118 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


logne; and Hampton Court made a very fair Ver- 
sailles — how incomparably fairer, even a pupil of 
Lintot’s should know. 

And after such healthy fatigue and fragrant im- 
pressions the tenpenny dinner had a better taste, 
the little front parlor in Pentonville was more like 
a home, the book more like a friend. 

For I read all I could get in English or French. 
Hovels, travels, history, poetry, science — everything 
came as grist to that most melancholy mill, my 
mind. 

I tried to write ; I tried to draw ; I tried to make 
myself an inner life apart from the sordid, common- 
place ugliness of my outer one — a private oasis of 
my own ; and to raise myself a little, if only men- 
tally, above the circumstances in which it had pleased 
the Fates to place me.* 


It goes without saying that, like many thought- 
ful youths of a melancholy temperament, impecuni- 


* Note . — It is with great reluctance that I now come to my cousin’s 
account of the deplorable opinions he held, at that period of his life, 
on the most important subject that can ever engross the mind of man. 

I have left out but I feel that in suppressing it altogether, I 

should rob his sad story of all its moral significance ; for it cannot be 
doubted that most of his unhappiness is attributable to the defective 
religious training of his childhood, and that his parents (otherwise the 
best and kindest people I have ever known) incurred a terrible respon- 
sibility when they determined to leave him “ unbiassed,” as he calls it, 
at that tender and susceptible age when the mind is 

“Wax to receive, and marble to retain.” 

Madge Plunkkt. 








120 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


ous and discontented with their lot, and much given 
to the smoking of strong tobacco (on an empty stom- 
ach), I continuously brooded on the problems of ex- 
istence-free-will and determinism, the whence and 
why and whither of man, the origin of evil, the im- 
mortality of the soul, the futility of life, etc., and 
made myself very miserable over such questions. 

Often the inquisitive passer-by, had he peeped 
through the blinds of No. — Wharton Street, Pen- 
tonville, late at night, would have been rewarded 
by the touching spectacle of a huge, rawboned ex- 
private in her Majesty’s Life Guards, with his head 
bowed over the black and yellow key -board of a 
venerable square piano-forte (on which he could not 
play), dropping the bitter tear of loneliness and 
WeUschnertz combined. 

It never once occurred to me to seek relief in the 
bosom of any Church. 

Some types are born and not made. I was a 
born infidel if ever there was a congenital ag- 
J nostic, one agnostically constituted from his very 
birth, it was I. Not that I had ever heard such an 
expression as agnosticism ; it is an invention of late 
years. ... 

“ J’avais- fait de la prose toiite ma vie sans le savoir 1” 

But almost the first conscious dislike I can re- 
member was for the black figure of the priest, and 
there were several of these figures in Passy. 

Monsieur le Major called them moAtres corleaux, 


• . 





132 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


and seemed to hold them in light esteem. Dr. 
Seraskier hated them ; his gentle Catholic wife had 
grown to distrust them. My loving, heretic mother 
loved them not ; my father, a Catholic born and bred, 
had an equal aversion. They had persecuted his 
gods — the thinkers, philosophers, and scientific dis- 
coverers — Galileo, Bruno, Copernicus ; and brought 
to his mind the cruelties of the Holy Inquisition, 
the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; and I always 
pictured them as burning little heretics alive if they 
had their will — Eton jackets, white chimney-pot 
hats, and all ! 

I have no doubt they were in reality the best 
and kindest of men. 

The parson (and parsons were not lacking in Pen- 
tonville) was not so insidiously repellent as the blue- 
cheeked, blue-chinned Pass}^ priest ; but he was by 
no means to me a picturesque or sympathetic ap- 
parition, with his weddedness, his whiskers, his black 
trousers, his frock - coat, his tall hat, his little white 
tie, his consciousness of being a “ gentleman ” by 
profession. Most unattractive, also, were the cheap, 
brand-new churches wherein he spoke the word to his 
dreary-looking, Sunday-clad flock, with scarcely one 
of whom his wife would have sat down to dinner — 
especially if she had been chosen from among them. 

To watch that flock pouring in of a Sunday morn- 
ing, or afternoon, or evening, at the summons of 
those bells, and pouring out again after the long 
service, and banal, perfunctory sermon, was depress- 
ing. Week-days, in Pentonville, were depressing 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


123 


euough ; but Sundays were depressing beyond — 
words, though nobody seemed to think so but my- 
self.^ Early training had acclimatized them. — 

I have outlived those physical antipathies of my 
salad days; even the sight of an Anglican bishop 
is no longer displeasing to me, on the contrary ; 
and I could absolutely 
rejoice in the beauty 
of a cardinal. 

Indeed, I am now 
friends with both a 
parson and a priest, 
and do not know which 
of the two I love and 
respect the most. They 
ought to hate me, but 
they do not ; they pity 
me too much, I sup- 
pose. I am too nega- 
tive to rouse in either 

the dee p theo lo gical ha te; and all the little hate 
that the practice of lov^ and charity has left in 
their kind hearts is reserved for each other — an un- 
quenchable hate in vdiich they seem to glory, and 
which rages all the more that it has to be concealed. 

It saddens me to think that I am a bone of conten- 
tion between them. 

And yet, for all my unbelief, the Bible was my 
favorite book, and the Psalms my adoration; and 
most truly can I affirm that my mental attitude has 
ever been one of reverence and humility. 



SUNDAY IN PENTONVIELE. 


124 


PETER IBBETSON. 


But every argument that has ever been advanced 
against Christianity (and I think I know them all by 
this time) had risen spontaneously and unprompted 
within me, and they have all seemed to me unan- 
swerable, and indeed, as yet, unanswered. Nor had 
any creed of which I ever heard appeared to me 
either credible or attractive or even sensible, but for 
the central figure of the Deity — a Deity that in no 
case could ever be mine. 

The awe-inspiring and unalterable conception that 
had wrought itself into my consciousness, whether 
I would or no, was that of a Being infinitely more 
abstract, remote, and inaccessible than any the gen- 
ius of mankind has ever evolved after its own 
image and out of the needs of its own heart — in- 
scrutable, unthinkable, unspeakable; above all hu- 
man passions, beyond the reach of any human ap- 
peal; One upon whose attributes it was fu;dle to 
'^speculate — One w^hose name was not He. 

The thought of total annihilation was unconge- 
nial, but had no terror. 

Even as a child I had shrewdly suspected that 
hell was no more than a vulgar threat for naughty 
little boys and girls, and heaven than a vulgar bribe, 
from the casual way in which either was meted out 
to me as my probable portion, by servants and such 
people, according to the way I behaved. Such things 
were never mentioned to me by either my father or 
mother, or M. le Major, or the Seraskiers — the only 
people in whom I trusted. 

But for the bias against the priest, I was left un- 


PETER IBBETSON. 


125 


biassed at that tender and susceptible age. I had 
learned my catechism and read my Bible, and used 
to say the Lord’s Prayer as I went to bed, and 
“ God bless papa and mamma,” and the rest, in the 
usual perfunctory manner. 

Never a word against religion was said in my 
hearing by those few on whom I had pinned my 
childish faith; on the other hand, no such impor- 
tance was attached to it, apparently, as was attached 
to the virtues of truthfulness, courage, generosity, 
self-denial, politeness, and especially consideration 
for others, high or low, human and animal alike. 

I imagine that my parents must have compro- 
mised the matter between them, and settled that I 
should work out all the graver problems of exist- 
ence for myself, when I came to a thinking age, 
out of my own conscience, and such knowledge of 
life as I should acquire, and such help as they would 
no doubt have given me, according to their hghts, 
had they survived. 

I did so, and made myself a code of morals to live 
by, in which religion had but a small part. 

For me there was but one sin, and that was cru- 
elty, because I hated it ; though Nature, for inscru- 
table purposes of her own, almost teaches it as a 
virtue. All sins that did not include cruelty were 
merely sins against health, or taste, or common- 
sense, or public expediency. 

Free-will was impossible. We could only seem to 
will freely, and that only within the limits of a 
small triangle, whose sides were heredity, education. 


126 


PETER IBBETSON. 


and circumstance — a little geometrical arrangement 
of my own, of which I felt not a little proud, al- 
though it does not quite go on all-fours — perhaps 
because it is only a triangle. 

That is, we could will fast enough — too fast ; but 
could not will how to will — fortunately, for we were 
not fit as yet, and for a long time to come, to be 
trusted, constituted as we are ! 

Even the characters of a novel must act accord- 
ing to the nature, training, and motives their crea- 
tor the novelist has supplied them with, or we put 
the novel down and read something else; for hu- 
man nature must be consistent with itself in fiction 
as well as in fact. Even in its madness there must 
be a method, so how could the will be free ? 

To pray for any personal boon or remission of 
evil — to bend the knee, or lift one’s voice in praise 
or thanksgiving for any earthly good that had be- 
fallen one, either through inheritance, or chance, or 
one’s own successful endeavor — was in my eyes sim- 
ply futile ; but, putting its futility aside, it was an 
act of servile presumption, of wheedling imperti- 
nence, not without suspicion of a lively sense of fa- 
vors to come. 

It seemed to me as though the Jews — a supersti- 
tious and business-like people, who know what they 
want and do not care how they get it — must have 
taught us to pray like that. 

It was not the sweet, simple child innocently be- 
seeching that to-morrow might be fine for its holi- 
day, or that Santa Claus would be generous ; it was 


fETER iBBETSOi^. 


127 


the cunning trader, fawning, flattering, propitiating, 
bribing with fulsome, sycophantic praise (an insult 
in itself), as well as burnt-offerings, working for his 
own success here and hereafter, and his enemy’s 
confounding. 

It was the grovelling of the dog, without the 
dog’s single-hearted love, stronger than even its 
fear or its sense of self-interest. 

What an attitude for one whom God had made 
after His own image — even towards his Maker ! 


The only permissible prayer was a prayer for 
courage or resignation ; for that was a prayer turn- 
ed inward, an appeal to what is best in ourselves — 
our honor, our stoicism, our self-respect. 

And for a small detail, grace before and after 
meals seemed to me especially self-complacent and 
iniquitous, when there were so many with scarcely 
ever a meal to say grace for. The only decent and 
proper grace was to give half of one’s meal away 
— not, indeed, that I was in the habit of doing 
so ! But at least I had the grace to reproach my- 
self for my want of charity, and that was my only 
grace. 


Fortunately, since we had no free-will of our 
own, the tendency that impelled us was upward, 
like the sparks, and bore us with it willy-nilly — the 
good and the bad, and the worst and thelbest. 


128 


PETER IBBETSON. 


By seeing this clearly, and laying it well to 
heart, the motive was supplied to us for doing all 
we could in furtherance of that upward tendency — 
pour aider le hon JDieu — that we might rise the 
faster and reach Him the sooner, if He Avere ! And 
when once the human will has been set going, like 
a rocket or a clock or a steam-engine, and in the 
right direction, what can it not achieve ? 

We should in time control circumstance instead 
of being controlled thereby ; education would day 
by day become more adapted to one consistent end ; 
and, finally, conscience - stricken, Ave should guide 
heredity with our OAvn hands instead of leaving it 
to blind chance; unless, indeed, a Avell-instructed 
paternal government wisely took the reins, and only 
sanctioned the union of people AAdio Avere thorough- 
ly in loA^e with each other, after due and careful 
elimination of the unfit. 

Thus, cruelty should at least be put into harness, 
and none of its valuable energy Avasted on Avanton 
experiments, as it is by Hature. 

And thus, as the boy is father to the man, should 
the human race one day be father to — Avhat ? 

That is just Avhere my speculations would arrest 
themselves ; that Avas the x of a sum in rule of 
three, not to be worked out by Peter Ibbetson, Ar- 
chitect and Surveyor, Wharton Street, Pentonville. 

As the orang-outang is to Shakespeare, so is 
Shakespeare to . . . x ? 

As the female chimpanzee is to the Yenus of 
Milo, so isHhe Yenus of Milo to . . . x ? 


PETER IBBETSON. 


129 


Finally, multiply these two x’s by each other, 
and try to conceive the result ! 

Such was, crudely, the simple creed I held at this 
time ; and, such as it was, I had worked it all out 
for myself, with no help from outside — a poor 
thing, but mine own ; or, as I expressed it in the 
words of De Musset, “ Mon verre n’est pas grand — 
mais je bois dans mon verre.” 

For though such ideas were in the air, like whole- 
some clouds, they had not yet condensed themselves 
into printed words for the million. People did not 
dare to write about these things, as they do at pres- 
ent, in popular novels and cheap magazines, that all 
who run may read, and learn to think a little for 
themselves, and honestly say what they think, with- 
out having to dread a howl of execration, clerical 
and lay. 

And it was not only that I thought like this and 
could not think otherwise ; it was that I felt like 
this and could not feel otherwise ; and I should 
have appeared to myself as wicked, weak, and base 
had I ever even desired to think or feel otherwise, 
however personally despairing of this life — a traitor 
to what I jealously guarded as my best instincts. 

And yet to me the faith of others, if but unag- 
gressive, humble, and sincere, had often seemed, 
touching and pathetic, and sometimes even beauti- 
ful, as childish things seem sometimes beautiful, 
even in those who are no longer children, and 
9 


130 


PETER IBBETSON. 


should have put them away. It had caused many 
heroic lives, and rendered many obscure lives blame- 
less and happy; and then its fervor and passion 
seemed to burn with a lasting flame. 

At brief moments now and then, and especially 
in the young, unfaith can be as fervent and as pas- 
sionate as faith, and just as narrow and unreason- 
able, as I found ; but alas ! its flame was intermit- 
tent, and its light was not a kindly light. 

It had no food for babes ; it could not comfort 
the sick or sorry, nor resolve into submissive har- 
mony the inner discords of the soul ; nor compen- 
sate us for our own failures and shortcomings, nor 
make up to us in any way for the success and pros- 
perity of others who did not choose to think as 
we did. 

It was without balm for wounded pride, or stay 
for weak despondency, or consolation for bereave- 
ment ; its steep and rugged thoroughfares led to no 
promised land of beatitude, and there were no soft 
resting-places by the way. 

Its only weapon was steadfastness ; its only shield, 
endurance ; its earthly hope, the common weal ; its 
earthly prize, the opening of all roads to knowl- 
edge, and the release from a craven inheritance of 
fear; its final guerdon— sleep? Who knows? 

Sleep was not bad. 

So that simple, sincere, humble, devout, earnest, 
fervent, passionate, and over - conscientious young 
unbelievers like myself had to be very strong and 
brave and self-reliant (which I was not), and very 


PETER IBBEJSON. 


181 


much in love with what they conceived to be the 
naked Truth (a figure of doubtful personal attrac- 
tions at first sight), to tread the ways of life with 
that unvarying cheerfulness, confidence, and seren- 
ity Avhich the believer claims as his own special and 
particular a, panage. 

So much for my profession of unfaith, shared 
(had I but known it) by many much older and wiser 
and better educated than I, and only reached by 
them after great sacrifice of long-cherished illusions, 
and terrible pangs of soul -questioning — a struggle 
and a wrench that I was spared through my kind 
parents’ thoughtfulness when I was a little boy. 


It thus behooved me to make the most of this 
life ; since, for all I knew, or believed, or even hoped 
to the contrary, to-morrow we must die. 

Hot, indeed, that I might eat and drink and be 
merry ; heredity and education had not inclined me 
that way, I suppose, and circumstances did not al- 
low it; but that I might try and live up to the 
best ideal I could frame out of my own conscience 
and the past teaching of mankind. And man, 
whose conception of the Infinite and divine has 
been so inadequate, has furnished us with such hu- 
man examples (ancient and modern, Hebrew, Pagan, 
Buddhist, Christian, Agnostic, and what not) as the 
best of us can only hope to follow at a distance. 

I would sometimes go to my morning’s work, my 
heart elate with lofty hope and high resolve. 


132 


petj:r ibbetson. 


How easy and simple it seemed to lead a life 
without fear, or reproach, or self-seeking, or any 
sordid hope of personal reward, either here or here- 
after! — a life of stoical endurance, invincible pa- 
tience and meekness, indomitable cheerfulness and 
self-denial ! 

After all, it was only for another forty or fifty 
years at the most, and what was that? And after 
that — que sgais-je f 

The thought was inspiring indeed ! 

By luncheon-time (and luncheon consisted of an 
Abernethy biscuit and a glass of water, and several 
pipes of shag tobacco, cheap and rank) some subtle 
change would come over the spirit of my dream. 

■ Other people did not have high resolves. Some 
people had very bad tempers, and rubbed one very 
much the wrong way. . . . 

What a hideous place was Pentonville to slave 
away one’s life in ! . . . 

What a grind it was to be forever making de- 
signs for little new shops in Kosoman Street, and 
not making them well, it seemed ! . . . 

Why should a squinting, pock-marked, bowleg- 
ged, hunch-backed little Judkins (a sight to make a 
recruiting-sergeant shudder) forever taunt one with 
having enlisted as a private soldier ? . . . 

And then why should one be sneeringly told to 
“hit a fellow one’s own size,” merely because, pro- 
voked beyond endurance, one just grabbed him by 
the slack of his trousers and gently shook him out of 
them onto the floor, terrifled but quite unhurt ? . . . 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


133 


And so on, and so on ; constant little pin-pricks, 
sordid humiliations, ugliness, meannesses, and dirt, 
that called forth in resistance all that was lowest 
and least commendable in one’s self. 

One has attuned one’s nerves to the leading of a 
forlorn hope, and a gnat gets into one’s eye, or a 
little cinder grit, and there it sticks ; and there is no 
question of leading any forlorn hope, after all, and 
never will be ; all that was in the imagination only : 
it is always gnats and cinder grits, gnats and cinder 
grits. 

By the evening I had ignominiously broken down, 
and was plunged in the depths of an exasperated 
pessimism too deep even for tears, and would have 
believed myself the meanest and most miserable of 
mankind, but that everybody else, without excep- 
tion, was even meaner and miserabler than myself. 

They could still eat and drink and be merry. I 
could not, and did not even want to. 


And so on, day after day, week after week, for 
months and years. . . . 

Thus I grew weary in time of my palling individ- 
uality, ever the same through all these uncontrol- 
lable variations of mood. 

Oh, that alternate ebb and flow of the spirits ! It 
is a disease, and, what is most distressing, it is no 
real change; it is more sickeningly monotonous 
than absolute stagnation itself. And from that 
dreary seesaw I could never escape, except through 


134 


PETER IBBETSON. 


the gates of dreamless sleep, the death in life ; for 
even in our dreams we are still ourselves. There 
was no rest ! 

I loathed the very sight of myself in the shop- 
windows as I went by ; and yet I always looked for 
it there, in the forlorn hope of at least finding some 
alteration, even for the worse. I passionately longed 
to be somebody else ; and yet I never met anybody 
else I could have borne to be for a moment. 

And then the loneliness of us ! 

Each separate unit of our helpless race is inexora- 
bly bounded by the inner surface of his own mental 
periphery, a jointless armor in which there is no 
weak place, never a fault, never a single gap of 
egress for ourselves, of ingress for the nearest and 
dearest of our fellow- units. At only five points can 
we just touch each other, and all that is — and that 
only by the function of our poor senses — from the 
outside. In vain we rack them that we may get a 
little closer to the best beloved and most implicitly 
trusted ; ever in vain, from the cradle to the grave. 

Why should so fantastic a thought have perse- 
cuted me so cruelly? I knew nobod}^ with whom 
I should have felt such a transfusion of soul even 
tolerable for a second. I cannot tell! But it was 
like a gadfly which drove me to fatigue my body 
that I should have by day the stolid peace of mind 
that comes of healthy physical exhaustion ; that I 
should sleep at night the dreamless sleep — the death 
in life ! 

“Of such materials wretched men are made!” 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


135 


Especially wretched young men ; and the wretch- 
eder one is, the more one smokes ; and the more one 
smokes, the wretcheder one gets — a vicious circle ! 

Such was my case. I grew to long for the hour 
of my release (as I expressed it pathetically to my- 
self), and caressed the idea of suicide. I even com- 
posed for myself a little rhymed epitaph in French 
which I thought very neat — 

Je n’etais point. Je fus. 

Je ne suis plus. 


Oh, to perish in some noble cause — to die saving 
another’s life, even another’s worthless life, to which 
he clung ! 

I remember formulating this wish, in all sincerity, 
one moonlit night as I walked up Frith Street, Soho. 
I came upon a little group of excited people gath- 
ered together at the foot of a house built over a 
shop. From a broken window-pane on the second 
floor an ominous cloud of smoke rose like a column 
into the windless sky. An ordinary ladder was 
placed against the house, which, they said, was 
densely inhabited ; but no fire-engine or fire-escape 
had arrived as yet, and it appeared useless to try 
and rouse the inmates by kicking and beating at 
the door any longer. 

A brave man was wanted — a very brave man, 
who would climb the ladder, and make his way into 
the house through the broken window. Here was 
a forlorn hope to lead at last ! 


136 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Such a man was found. To my lasting shame 
and contrition, it was not I. 

He was short and thick and middle-aged, and had 
a very jolly red face and immense whiskers — quite 
a common sort of man, who seemed by no means 
tired of life. 

His heroism was wasted, as it happened ; for the 
house was an empty one, as we all heard, to our 
immense relief, before he had managed to force a 
passage into the burning room. His whiskers were 
not even singed ! 

Nevertheless, I slunk home, and gave up all 
thoughts of self-destruction — even in a noble cause ; 
and there, in penance, I somewhat hastily commit- 
ted to flame the plodding labor of many midnights 
— an elaborate copy in pen and ink, line for line, of 
Ketel’s immortal wood - engraving “ Der Tod als 
Freund,” which Mrs. Lintot had been kind enough 
to lend me — and under which I had written, in 
beautiful black Gothic letters and red capitals (and 
without the slightest sense of either humor or irrev- 
erence), the following poem, which had cost me in- 
finite pains : 

I. 


F, i, fi— n, i, ni ! 

Bon Dieu P^re, j’ai fini . . . 
Vous qui m’avez tant puni, 
Dans ma triste vie, 

Pour tant d’horribles forfaits 
• Que je ne commis jamais, 
Laissez-moi jouir en paix 
De mon agonie ! 


PETER IBBETSON. 


137 


II. 

Les faveurs que je Vous dois, 

Je les compte siir mes doigts ? 
Tout infirme que je sois, 

Qa se fait bien vite ! 

Prenez patience, et comptez 
/ Tous mes maux — puis computez 
( Toutes Vos severites — 

Vous me tiendrez quitte ! 



III. 

N6 pour souffrir, et souffrant — 

Bas, honni, b^te, ignorant, 

Vieux, laid, chetif — et mourant 
Dans mon trou sans plainte, 

Je suis aussi sans desir 

Autre que d’en bien finir — r 

Sans regret, sans repentir — 

Sans espoir ni crainte ! 


IV. 

P^re inflexible et jaloux, 

Votre Fils est mort pour nous I 
Aussi, je reste envers Vous 
Si bien sans rancune, 

Que je voudrais, sans fagon, 
Faire, au seuil de ma prison, 
Quelque petite oraison . . . 

Je n’en sais pas une ! 


V. 

J’entends sonner I’Angelus 
Qui rassemble Vos Elus : 
Pour moi, du bercail exclus, 
C’est la mort qui sonne I 


138 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Prier ne profile rien . . . 
Pardonuer est le seul bien : 
C’est le V6tre, et c’est le mien: 
je Vous pardonne 1 


VI. 

Soyez d’un egard pareil ! \ 

S’il est quelque vrai sommeil j 
Sans ni rgve, ni reveil, y 
Ouvrez-m’en la porte — 

Faites que I’immense Oubli 
Couvre, sous un dernier pli, 

. Dans mon corps enseveli, 

Ma conscience morte ! 

Oh me duffer ! What a hopeless failure was I in 
all things, little and big. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


139 


Ipart c:bfrD. 



I HAD no friends 
but the Lintots 
and their friends. 
“ Les amis de nos 
amis sont nos amis !” 

My cousin Alfred 
had gone into the 
army, like his father 
before him. My 
cousin Charlie had 
gone into the Church, 
and we had drifted 
completely apart. 
My grandmother was 
dead. My Aunt 
Plunket, a great invalid, lived in Florence. Her 
daughter, Madge, was in India, happily married to a 
young soldier who is now a most distinguished gen- 
eral. 

The Lintots held their heads high as representa- 
tives of a liberal profession, and an old Pentonville 
family. People were generally exclusive in those 
days — an exclusiveness that was chiefly kept up by 
the ladies. There were charmed circles even in 
Pentonville. 

Among the most exclusive were the Lintots. Let 


140 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


US hope, in common justice, that those they excluded 
were at least able to exclude others. 

I have eaten their bread and salt, and it would ill 
become me to deny that their circle was charming 
as well as charmed. But I had no gift for making 
friends, although I was often attracted by people 
the very opposite of myself; especially by little, 
clever, quick, but not too familiar men ; but even if 
they were disposed to make advances, a miserable 
shyness and stiffness of manner on my part, that 
I could not help, would raise a barrier of ice be- 
tween us. 

They were most hospitable people, these good 
Lintots, and had many friends, and gave many par- 
ties, which my miserable shyness prevented me from 
enjoying to the full. They were both too stiff and 
too free. 

In the drawing-room, Mrs. Lintot and one or two 
other ladies, severely dressed, would play the se- 
verest music in a manner that did not mitigate its 
severity. They were merciless ! It was nearly al- 
ways Bach, or Hummel, or Scarlatti, each of whom, 
they would say, could write both like an artist and 
a gentleman — a very rare but indispensable combi- 
nation, it seemed. 

Other ladies, young and middle - aged, and a few 
dumb-struck youths like myself, would be suffered 
to listen, but never to retaliate — never to play or 
sing back again. 

If one ventured to ask for a song without words 
by Mendelssohn — or a song with words, even by 





142 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Schubert, even with German words — one was re- 
buked and made to blush for the crime of musical 
frivolity. 

Meanwhile, in Lintot’s office (built by himself in 
the back garden), grave men and true, pending the 
supper hour, would smoke and sip spirits-and- water, 
and talk shop ; formally at first, and with much 
politeness. But gradually, feeling their way, as it 
,were, ^ey would relax into social unbuttonment,"\ 
and drop the “ Mister ” before each other’s names^ 
(to be resumed next morning), and indulge in lively 
professional chaff, which would soon become per- 
sonal and free and boisterous — a good-humored kind 
of warfare in which I did not shine, for lack of 
quickness and repartee. For instance, they would 
ask one whether one would rather be a bigger fool 
than one looked, or look a bigger fool than one was ; 
and whichever way one answered the question, the 
retort would be that ‘‘ that was impossible !” amid 
roars of laughter from all but one. 

So that I would take a middle course, and spend 
most of the evening on the stairs and in the hall, 
and study (with an absorbing interest much too well 
feigned to look natural) the photographs of famous 
cathedrals and public buildings till supper came; 
when, by assiduously attending on the ladies, I 
would cause my miserable existence to be remem- 
bered, and forgiven; and soon forgotten again, I 
fear. ' 

I hope I shall not be considered an overweening 
coxcomb for saying that, on the whole, I found more 


PETER IBBETSON. 


143 


favor with the ladies than with the gentlemen ; es- 
pecially at supper-time. 

After supper there would be a change — for the 
better, some thought. Lintot, emboldened by good- 
cheer and good - fellowship, would become unduly, 
immensely, uproariously funny, in spite of his wife. 
He had a genuine gift of buffoonery. His friends 
would whisper to each other that Lintot was “ on,” 
and encourage him. Bach and Hummel and Scar- 
latti were put on the shelf, and the young people 
would have a good time. There were comic songs 
and negro melodies, with a chorus all round. Lintot 
would sing ‘‘ Yilikins and his Dinah,” in the man- 
ner of Mr. Hobson, so well that even Mrs. Lin tot’s 
stern mask would relax into indulgent smiles. It 
was irresistible. And when the party broke up, we 
could all (thanks to our host) honestly thank our 
hostess ‘‘for a very pleasant evening,” and cheer- 
fully, yet almost regretfully, wish her good-night. 

It is good to laugh sometimes — wisely if one can ; 
if not, quocumque modo / There are seasons when 
even “ the crackling of thorns under a pot ” has its 
uses. It seems to warm the pot — all the pots — and 
aU the emptiness thereof, if they be empty. 


Once, indeed, I actually made a friend, but he did 
not last me very long. 

It happened thus : Mrs. Lintot gave a grander 
party than usual. One of the invited was Mr. Mo- 
ses Lyon, the great picture-dealer — a client of Lin- 


144 


PETER IBBET30N. 


tot’s; and he brought with him young Eaphael 
Merridew, the already famous painter, the most at- 
tractive youth I had ever seen. Small and slight, 
but beautifully made, and dressed in the extreme 
of fashion, with a handsome face, bright and polite 
manners, and an irresistible voice, he became his 
laurels well; he would have been sufficiently daz- 
zling without them. E’ever had those hospitable 
doors in Myddelton Square been opened to so brill- 
iant a guest. 

I was introduced to him, and he discovered that 
the bridge of my nose was just suited for the face 
of the sun-god in his picture of “The Sun-god and 
the Dawn-maiden,” and begged I would favor him 
with a sitting or two. 

Proud indeed was I to accede to such a request, 
and I gave him many sittings. I used to rise at 
dawn to sit, before my work at Lintot’s began ; and 
to sit again as soon as I could be spared. 

It seems I not only had the nose and brow of a 
sun-god (who is not supposed to be a very intellect- 
ual person), but also his arms and his torso ; and sat 
for these, too. I have been vain of myself ever since. 

During these sittings, which he made delightful, 
I grew to love him as David loved Jonathan. 

We settled that we would go to the Derby to- 
gether in a hansom. I engaged the smartest han- 
som in London days beforehand. On the great 
Wednesday morning I was punctual with it at his 
door in Charlotte Street. There was another han- 
som there already — a smarter* hansom still than 


PETER IBBETSON. 


145 


mine, for it was a private one — and he came down 
and told me he had altered his mind, and was going 
with Lyon, who had asked him the evening before. 

“ One of the first picture-dealers in London, my 
dear fellow. Hang it all, you know, I couldn’t re- 
fuse — awfully sorry !” 

So I drove to the Derby in solitary splendor; 
but the bright weather, the humors of the road, all 
the gay scenes were thrown away upon me, such 
was the bitterness of my heart. 

In the early afternoon I saw Merridew lunching 
on the top of a drag, among some men of smart 
and aristocratic appearance. He seemed to be the 
life of the party, and gave me a good-humored nod 
as I passed. I soon found Lyon sitting disconsolate 
in his hansom, scowling and solitary; he invited 
me to lunch with him, and disembosomed himself 
of a load of bitterness as intense as mine (which I 
kept to myself). The shrewd Hebrew tradesman 
was sunk in the warm-hearted, injured friend. 
Merridew had left Lyon for the Earl of Chiselhurst, 
just as he had left me for Lyon. 

That was a dull Derby for us both ! 

A few days later I met Merridew, radiant as ever. 
All he said was : 

‘‘Awful shame of me to drop old Lyon for Chisel- 
hurst, eh ? But an earl, my dear fellow ! Hang it 
all, you know ! Poor old Mo’ had to get back in 
his hansom all by himself, but he’s bought the 
‘ Sun-god ’ all the same.” 

Merridew soon dropped me altogether, to my 
10 


146 


PETER IBBETSON. 


great sorrow, for I forgave him his Derby deser- 
tion as quickly as Lyon did, and would have for- 
given him anything. He was one of those for 
whom allowances are always being made, and with 
a good grace. 

He died before he was thirty, poor boy ! but his 
fame will never die. The “Sun-god” (even with 
the bridge of that nose which had been so wofully 
put out of joint) is enough by itself to place him 
among the immortals. Lyon sold it to Lord Chisel- 
hurst for three thousand pounds — it had cost him 
five hundred. It is now in the I^ational Gallery. 

Poetical justice was satisfied ! 


Hor was I more fortunate in love than in friend- 
ship. 

All the exclusiveness in the world cannot exclude 
good and beautiful maidens, and these were not lack- 
ing, even in Pentonville. 

There is always one maiden much more beautiful 
and good than all the others — like Esmeralda among 
the ladies of the Hotel de Gondelaurier. There was 
such a maiden in Pentonville, or rather Clerkenwell, 
close by. But her station was so humble (like Es- 
meralda’s) that even the least exclusive would have 
drawn the line at Tier! She was one of a large 
family, and they sold tripe and pig’s feet, and food 
for cats and dogs, in a very small shop opposite the 
western wall of the Middlesex House of Detention. 
She was the eldest, and the busy, responsible one at 











148 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


this poor counter. She was one of IS'ature’s ladies, 
one of Nature’s goddesses — a queen ! Of that I felt 
sure every time I passed her shop, and shyly met 
her kind, frank, uncoquet-tish gaze. A time was ap- 
proaching when I should have to overcome my shy- 
ness, and tell her that she of all women was the 
woman for me, and that it was indispensable, abso- 
lutely indispensable, that we two should be made 
one— immediately ! at once ! forever ! 

But before I could bring myself to this she mar- 
ried somebody else, and we had never exchanged a 
single word ! 

If she is alive now she is an old woman — a good 
and beautiful old woman, I feel sure, wherever she 
is, and whatever her rank in life. If she should 
read this book, which is not very likely, may she 
accept this small tribute from an unknown admirer; 
for whom, so many years ago, she beautified and 
made poetical the hideous street that still bounds 
the Middlesex House of Detention on its western 
side ; and may she try to think not the less of it 
because since then its writer has been on the wrono^ 
side of that long, blank wall, of that dreary portal 
where the agonized stone face looks down on the 
desolate slum : 

“Per me si va tra la perduta gente . . .!" 


After this disappointment I got myself a big dog 
(like Byron, Bismarck, and Wagner), but not in the* 
spirit of emulation. Indeed, I had never heard of 






150 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


either Bismarck or Wagner in those days, or their 
dogs, and I had lost my passion for Byron and any 
wish to emulate him in any way ; it was simply for 
the want of something to be fond of, and that 
would be sure to love me back again. 

He was not a big dog when I bought him, but 
just a little ball of orange-tawny fluff that I could 
carry with one arm. He cost me all the money I 
had saved up for a holiday trip to Passy. I had 
seen his father, a champion St. Bernard, at a dog- 
show, and felt that life would be well worth living 
with such a companion ; but his price was five hun- 
dred guineas. When I saw the irresistible son, just 
six weeks old, and heard that he was only one-fiftieth 
part of his sire’s value, I felt that Passy must wait, 
and became his possessor. 

I gave him of the best that money could buy — 
real milk at fivepence a quart, three quarts a day. 
I combed his fluff every morning, and washed him 
three times a week, and killed all his fleas one by 
one — a labor of love. I weighed him every Satur- 
day, and found he increased at the rate of from 
six to nine pounds weekly ; and his power of affec- 
tion increased as the square of his weight. I chris- 
tened him Porthos, because he was so big and fat 
and jolly ; but in his noble puppy face and his beau- 
tiful pathetic eyes I already foresaw for his mid- 
dle age that distinguished and melancholy grandeur 
which characterized the sublime Athos, Comte de 
la Fere. 

He was a joy. It was good to go to sleep at 


/ - 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


151 



PORTHOS AND HIS ATTENDANT SQUIRE. 


night and know he would be there in the morning. 
Whenever we took our walks abroad, everybody 
turned round to look at him and admire, and to 
ask if he was good-tempered, and what his partic- 
ular breed was, and what I fed him on. He became 
a monster in size — a beautiful, playful, gracefully 
galumphing, and most affectionate monster, and I, 
his happy Frankenstein, congratulated myself on 
the possession of a treasure that would last twelve 
years at least, or eveu fourteen, with the care I 


152 


PETER IBBETSON. 


meant to take of him. But he died of distemper 
when he was eleven months old. 

I do not know if little dogs cause as large griefs 
when they die as big ones ; but I settled there should 
be no more dogs — big or little — for me. 


After this I took to writing verses and sending 
them to magazines, where they never appeared. 
They were generally about my being reminded, by 
a tune, of things that had happened a long time ago : 
my poetic, like my artistic vein, was limited. 

Here are the last I made, thirty years back. My 
only excuse for giving them is that they are so sin- 
gularly jprophetic. 

The reminding tune (an old French chime which 
my father used to sing) is vei^ simple and touching ; 
and the old French words run thus : 


“ Orleans, Beaugency 1 
Notre Dame de Clery 1 

VendSme I Vend6me! 
Quel chagrin, quel ennui 
De compter toute la nuit 

Les heures— les heures 1” 


That is all. They are supposed to be sung by a 
mediaBval prisoner who cannot sleep ; and who, to 
beguile the tediousness of his insomnia, sets any 
words that come into his head to the tune of the 
chime which marks the hours from a neighboring 


PETER IBBETSON. 


153 


belfry. I tried to fancy that his name was Pasquier 
de la Mariere, and that he was my ancestor. 

THE CHIME. 

There is an old French air, 

A little song of loneliness and grief — 

Simple, as nature, sweet beyond compare — 

And sad — past all belief ! 

Nameless is he that wrote 
The melody — but this much I opine : 

Whoever made the words was some remote 
French ancestor of mine. 

I know the dungeon deep 
Where long he lay — and why he lay therein ; 

And all his anguish, that he could not sleep 
For conscience of a sin. 

X see his cold, hard bed ; 

I hear the chimes that jingled in his ears 
As he pressed nightly, with that wakeful head, 

A pillow wet with tears. 

Oh, restless little chime ! 

It never changed — but rang its roundelay 
For each dark hour of that unhappy time 
That sighed itself away. 

And ever, more and more. 

Its burden grew of his lost self a part — 

And mingled with his memories, and wore 
Its way into his heart. 

And there it wove the name 
Of many a town he loved, for one dear sake, 

Into its web of music ; thus he came 
His little song to make. 


154 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


Of all that ever heard 
And loved it for its sweetness, none but I 
Divined the clew that, as a hidden word, 
The notes doth underlie. 

That wail from lips long dead 
Has found its echo in this breast alone ! 
Only to me, by blood-remembrance led, 

Is that wild story known ! 

And though ’tis mine, by right 
Of treasure-trove, to rifle and lay bare — 

A heritage of sorrow and delight 

The world would gladly share — 

Yet must I not unfold 
For evermore, nor whisper late or soon. 

The secret that a few slight bars thus hold 
Imprisoned in a tune. 

For when that little song 
Goes ringing in my head, I know that he. 
My luckless lone forefather, dust so long. 
Relives his life in me ! 


I sent them to ’5 Magazine^ with the six 

French lines .on which they Avere founded at the 

top. ^8 Magazine published only the six French 

lines — the only lines in my handAvriting that ever 
got into print. And they date from the fifteenth 
century ! 

Thus Avas my little song lost to the Avorld, and 
for a time to me. But long, long afterwards I found 
it again, Avhere Mr. LongfelloAV once found a song of 
his : in the heart of a friend” — surely the SAveetest 
bourne that can ever be for any song ! 


PETER IBBETSON. 


155 


Little did I foresee that a day was not far off 
when real blood-remembrance would carry me — but 
that is to come. 


Poetry, friendship, and love having failed, I sought 
for consolation in art, and frequented the ^N'ational 
Gallery, Marlborough House (where the Yernon col- 
lection was), the British Museum, the Koyal Acad- 
emy, and other exhibitions. 

I prostrated myself before Titian, Eembrandt, 
Yelasquez, Veronese, Da Yinci, Botticelli, Signorelli 
— the older the better ; and tried my best to hon- 
estly feel the greatness I knew and know to be 
there ; but for want of proper training I was unable 
to reach those heights, and, like most outsiders, ad- 
mired them for the wrong things, for the very beau- 
ties they lack — such transcendent, ineffable beauties 
of feature, form, and expression as an outsider always 
looks for in an old master, and often persuades him- 
self he finds there — and oftener jpretends he 
does ! 

I was far more sincerely moved (although I did 
not dare to say so) by some works of our own time — 
for instance, by the “Yale of Best,” the “Autumn 
Leaves,” “ The Huguenot ” of young Mr. Millais — 
just as I found such poems as Maud and In Memo- 
riam^ by Mr. Alfred Tennyson, infinitely more pre- 
cious and dear to me than Milton’s Po/radise Lost 
and Spenser’s Faerie Queene. 

Indeed, I was hopelessly modern in those days—* 


156 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


quite an everj-day young man ; the names I held in 
the warmest and deepest regard were those of then 
living men and women. Darwin, Browning, and 
George Eliot did not, it is true, exist for me as yet ; 
but Tennyson, Thackeray, Dickens, Millais, John 
Leech, George Sand, Balzac, the old Dumas, Victor 
Hugo, and Alfred de Musset ! 

I have never beheld them in the flesh ; but, like 
all the world, I know their outer aspect well, and 
could stand a pretty stiff examination in most they 
have ever written, drawn, or painted. 

Other stars of magnitude have risen since, but of 
the old galaxy four at least still shine out of the past 
with their ancient lustre undimmed in my eyes — 
Thackeray ; dear John Leech, who still has power 
to make me laugh as I like to laugh ; and for the 
two others it is plain that the Queen, the world, and 
I are of a like mind as to their deserts, for one of 
them is now an ornament to the British peerage, 
the other a baronet and a millionaire ; only I would 
have made dukes of them straight off, with prece- 
dence over the Archbishop of Canterbury, if they 
would care to have it so. 

It is with a full but humble heart that I thus 
venture to record my long indebtedness, and pay 
this poor tribute, still fresh from the days of my 
unquestioning hero-worship. It will serve, at least, 
to show my reader (should I ever have one suffi- 
ciently interested to care) in what mental latitudes 
and longitudes I dwelt, who was destined to such 
singular experience — a kind of reference, so to speak 


PETER IBBETSOK. 


157 


— that he may be able to place me at a glance^ ac- 
cording to the estimation in which he holds these 
famous and perhaps deathless names. 

It will be admitted, at least, that my tastes were 
normal, and shared by a large majority — the tastes 
of an every-day young man at that particular period 
of the nineteenth century — one much given to ath- 
letics and cold tubs, and light reading and cheap to- 
bacco, and endowed with the usual discontent ; the 
last person for whom or from whom or by whom to 
expect anything out of the common. 


But the splendor of the Elgin Marbles ! I under- 
•stood that at once — perhaps because there is not so 
much to understand. Mere physically beautiful peo- 
ple appeal to us all, whether they be in flesh or 
marble. 

By some strange intuition, or natural instinct, I 
Tcnew that people ought to be built like that, before 
I had ever seen a single statue in that wondrous 
room. I had divined them — so completely did they 
realize an aesthetic ideal I had always felt. 

I had often, as I walked the London streets, peo- 
pled an imaginary world of my own with a few 
hundreds of such beings, made flesh and blood, and 
pictured them as a kind of beneficent aristocracy 
seven feet high, with minds and manners to match 
their physique, and set above the rest of the world 
for its good ; for I found it necessary (so that my 
dream should have a point) to provide them with a 


158 


PETEE IBBET80N. 


foil in the shape of millions of such people as we 
meet every day. I was egotistic and self-seeking 
enough, it is true, to enroll myself among the for- 
mer, and had chosen for my particular use and wear 
just such a frame as that of the Theseus, with, of 
course, the nose and hands and feet (of which time 
has bereft him) restored, and all mutilations made 
good. 

And for my mistress and companion I had duly 
selected no less a person than the Yenus of Milo (no 
longer armless), of which Lintot possessed a plaster- 
cast, and whose beauties I had foreseen before I ever 
beheld them with the bodily eye. 

“ Monsieur n’est pas degoute !” as Ibbetson would 
have remarked. 


But most of all did I pant for the music which is 
divine. 

Alas, that concerts and operas and oratorios should 
not be as free to the impecunious as the i^^ational 
Gallery and the British Museum — a privilege which 
is not abused ! 

Impecunious as I was, I sometimes had pence 
enough to satisfy this craving, and discovered in 
time such realms of joy as I had never dreamed of ; 
such monarchs as Mozart, Handel, and Beethoven, 
and others, of whom my father knew apparently so 
little ; and yet they were more potent enchanters 
than Gretry, Herold, and Boieldieu, whose music he 
sang so well. 



i II /.t il-. 









160 


PETER IBBETSON. 


I discovered, moreover, that they could do more 
than charm — they could drive my weary self out of 
my weary soul, and for a space fill that weary soul 
with courage, resignation, and hope. No Titian, no 
Shakespeare, no Phidias could ever accomplish that 
— not even Mr. William Makepeace Thackeray or 
Mr. Alfred Tennyson. 

My sweetest recollections of this period of my 
life (indeed, the only sweet recollections) are of the 
music I heard, and the places where I heard it ; it 
was an enchantment ! With what vividness I can 
recall it all ! The eager anticipation for days ; the 
careful selection, beforehand, from such an emharras 
de richesses as was duly advertised ; then the long 
waiting in the street, at the doors reserved for those 
whose portion is to be the gallery. The hard-won 
seat aloft is reached at last, after a selfish but good- 
humored struggle up the long stone staircase (one is 
sorry for the weak, but a famished ear has no con- 
science). The gay and splendid house is crammed ; ' 
the huge chandelier is a golden blaze ; the delight 
of expectation is in the air, and also the scent of 
gas, and peppermint, and orange-peel, and music- 
loving humanity, whom I have discovered to be of 
sweeter fragrance than the common herd. 

The orchestra fills, one by one ; instruments tune 
up — a familiar cacophony, sweet with seductive 
promise. The conductor takes his seat — applause 
— a hush — three taps — the baton waves once, twice, 
thrice — the eternal fountain of magic is let loose, 
and at the very first jet 


PETER IBBETSON. 


161 


“The cares that infest the day 

Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, 
And as silently steal away.” 


Then lo ! the curtain rises, and straightway we 
are in Seville— Seville, after Pentonville ! Count 
Almaviva, lordly, gallant, and gay beneath his dis- 
guise, twangs his guitar, and what sounds issue from 
it ! For every instrument that was ever invented is 
in that guitar — the whole orchestra ! 

Ecco ridente il cielo . . . so sings he (with the 
most beautiful male voice of his time) under Kosina’s 
balcony ; and soon Kosina’s voice (the most beautiful 
female voice of hers) is heard behind her curtains 
— so girlish, so innocent, so young and light-hearted, 
that the eyes fill with involuntary tears. 

Thus encouraged, he warbles that his name is 
Lindoro, that he would fain espouse her ; that he is 
not rich in the goods of this world, but gifted with 
an inordinate, inexhaustible capacity for love (just 
like Peter Ibbetson ) ; and vows that he will always 
warble to her, in this wise, from dawn till when day- 
light sinks behind the mountain. But what matter 
the words ? 

“ Go on, my love, go on, like ihisT warbles back 
Kosina — and no wonder — till the dull, despondent, 
commonplace heart of Peter Ibbetson has room for 
nothing else but sunny hope and love and joy ! And 
yet it is all mere sound — impossible, unnatural, un- 
real nonsense ! 

Or else, in a square building, decent and well- 
11 


m 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


lighted enough, but not otherwise remarkable — the 
very chapel of music — four business-like gentlemen, 
in modern attire and spectacles, take their places on 
an unpretentious platform amid refined applause; 
and soon the still air vibrates to the trembling of 
sixteen strings — only that and nothing more I 

But in that is all Beethoven, or Schubert, or Schu- 
mann has got to say to us for the moment, and what 
a say it is ! And with what consummate precision 
and perfection it is said — with what a mathematical 
certainty, and yet with what suavity, dignity, grace, 
and distinction ! 

They are the four greatest players in the world, 
perhaps ; but they forget themselves, and we forget 
them (as it is their wish we should), in the master 
whose work they interpret so reverently, that we 
may yearn with his mighty desire and thrill with 
his rapture and triumph, or ache with his heavenly 
pain and submit with his divine resignation. 

Not all the words in all the tongues that ever 
were — dovetail them, rhyme them, alliterate them, 
torture them as you will — can ever pierce to the 
uttermost depths of the soul of man, and let in a 
glimpse of the Infinite, as do the inarticulate trem- 
blings of those sixteen strings. 

Ah, songs without words are the best ! 

Then a gypsy-like little individual, wiry and un- 
kempt, who looks as if he had spent his life listen- 
ing to the voices of the night in Heaven knows what 
Lithunian forests, with wolves and wild-boars for his 
familiars, and the wind in the trees for his teacher, 


PETER IBBETSON. 


163 


seats himself at the great brass-bound oaken Broad- 
wood piano-forte. And under his phenomenal fin- 
gers, a haunting, tender, world-sorrow, full of ques- 
tionings — a dark mystery of moonless, starlit nature 
— exhales itself in nocturnes, in impromptus, in pre- 
ludes — in mere waltzes and mazourkas even ! But 
waltzes and mazourkas such as the most frivolous 
would never dream of dancing to. A capricious, 
charming sorrow — not too deep for tears, if one be 
at all inclined to shed them — so delicate, so fresh, 
and yet so distinguished, so ethereally civilized and 
worldly and well-bred that it has crystallized itself 
into a drawing-room ecstasy, to last forever. It 
seems as though what was death (or rather eutha- 
nasia) to him who felt it, is play for us — surely an 
immortal sorrow whose recital will never, never pall 
— the sorrow of Chopin. 

Though why Chopin should have been so sorry 
we cannot even guess ; for mere sorrow’s sake, per- 
haps; the very luxury of woe — the real sorrow 
which has no real cause (like mine in those days) ; 
and that is the best and cheapest kind of sorrow to 
make music of, after all ! 

And this great little gypsy pianist, who plays his 
Chopin so well ; evidently he has not spent his life in 
Lithuanian forests, but hard at the key-board, night 
and day ; and he has had a better master than the 
wind in the trees — namely, Chopin himself (for it is 
printed in the programme). It was his father and 
mother before him, and theirs, who heard the voices 
of the night ; but he remembers it all, and puts it 


164 


PETER IBBETSON". 


all into his master’s music, and makes us remember 
it, too. 

Or else behold the chorus, rising tier upon tier, 
and culminating in the giant organ. But their 
thunder is just hushed. 

Some Liliputian figure, male or female, as the 
case may be, rises on its little legs amid the great 
Liliputian throng, and through the sacred stillness 
there peals forth a perfect voice (by no means Lili- 
putian). It bids us “ Best in the Lord,” or else it 
tells us that ‘‘He was despised and rejected of 
men;” but, again, what matter the words? They 
are almost a hinderance, beautiful though they be. 

The hardened soul melts at the tones of the sing- 
er, at the unspeakable pathos of the sounds that 
cannot lie; one almost believes — one believes at 
least in the belief of others. At last one under- 
stands, and is purged of intolerance and cynical 
contempt, and would kneel with the rest, in sheer 
human sympathy ! 

Oh, wretched outsider that one is (if it all be true) 
— one whose heart, so hopelessly impervious to the 
written word, so helplessly callous to the spoken 
message, can be reached only by the organized vi- 
brations of a trained larynx, a metal pipe, a reed, a 
fiddle-string — by invisible, impalpable, incomprehen- 
sible little air-waves in mathematical combination, 
that beat against a tiny drum at the back of one’s 
ear. And these mathematical combinations and 
the laws that govern them have existed forever, be- 
fore Moses, before Pan, long before either a larynx 


PETER IBBETSON. 


165 


or a tympanum had been evolved. They are abso- 
lute! 

Oh, mystery of mysteries ! 

Euterpe, Muse of Muses, what a personage hast 
thou become since first thou sattest for thy likeness 
(with that ridiculous lyre in thy untaught hands) to 
some Greek who could carve so much better than 
thou couldst play 1 

Four strings; but not the fingerable strings of 
Stradivarius. IS'ay, I beg thy pardon — five ; for thy 
scale was pentatonic, I believe. Orpheus himself 
had no better, it is true. It was with just such an 
instrument that he all but charmed his Eurydice 
out of Hades. But, alas, she went back ; on second 
thoughts, she liked Hades best I 

Couldst thou fire and madden and wring the 
heart, and then melt and console and charm it into 
the peace that passeth all understanding, with those 
poor five rudimentary notes, and naught between ? 

Couldst thou, out of those five sounds of fixed, un- 
alterable pitch, make, not a sixth sound, but a star ? 

What were they, those five sounds ? “ Do, re, mi, 

fa, sol What must thy songs without words have 
been, if thou didst ever make any ? 

Thou wast in very deed a bread-and-butter miss 
in those days, Euterpe, for all that thy eight twin 
sisters were already grown up, and out ; and now 
thou toppest them all by half a head, at least. “ Tu 
leur mangerais des petits pates sur la tete — comme 
Madame Seraskier I” 

And oh, how thou beatest them all for beauty ! 


166 


PETER IBBETSON. 


In my estimation, at least — like — like Madame Se^ 
raskier again ! 

And hast thou done growing at last ? 

Nay, indeed ; thou art not even yet a bread-and- 
butter miss — thou art but a sweet baby, one year 
old, and seven feet high, tottering midway between 
some blessed heaven thou hast only just left and 
the dull home of us poor mortals. 

The sweet one-year-old baby of our kin puts its 
hands upon our knees and looks up into our eyes 
with eyes full of unutterable meaning. It has so 
much to say! It can only say “ga-ga” and “ba- 
ba;” but with oh! how searching a voice, how 
touching a look — that is, if one is fond of babies! 
We are moved to the very core ; we want to under- 
stand, for it concerns us all ; we were once like that 
ourselves — the individual and the race — but for the 
life of us we cannot remember. 

And what canst ikou say to us yet, Euterpe, but 
thy “ga-ga” and thy “ba-ba,” the inarticulate sweet- 
ness whereof we feel and cannot comprehend % But 
how beautiful it is — and what a look thou hast, and 
what a voice — that is, if one is fond of music ! 

“ Je suis las des mots — je suis las d’entendre 
Ce qui peut mentir ; 

J’aime mieux les sods, qu’au lieu de comprendre 
Je n’ai qu’a sentir.” 


Next day I would buy or beg or borrow the mu- 
sic that had filled me with such emotion and de- 





168 


PETER IBBETSON. 


light, and take it home to my little square piano, 
and try to finger it all out for m^^self. But I had 
begun too late in life. 

To sit, longing and helpless, before an instrument 
one cannot play, with a lovely score one cannot read ! 
Even Tantalus was spared such an ordeal as that. 

It seemed hard that my dear father and mother, 
so accomplished in music themselves, should not 
even have taught me the musical notes, at an age 
when it was so easy to learn them ; and thus have 
made me free of that wonder -world of sound in 
which I took such an extraordinary delight, and 
might have achieved distinction — perhaps. 

But no, my father had dedicated me to the God- 
dess of Science from before my very birth ; that I 
might some day be better equipped than he for the 
pursuit, capture, and utilization of E'ature’s sterner 
secrets. There must be no dallying with light 
Muses. Alas ! I have fallen between two stools! 

And thus, Euterpe absent, her enchantment would 
pass away ; her handwriting was before me, but I 
had not learned how to decipher it, and my weary 
self would creep back into its old prison — my soul. 

Self-sickness — selbstschmerz, le mal de soi ! What 
a disease I It is not to be found in any dictionary, 
medical or otherwise. 

I ought to have been whipped for it, I know ; but 
nobody was big enough, or kind enough, to whip me ! 


At length there came a day when that weary, 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


169 


weak, and most ridiculous self of mine was driven 
out — and exorcised for good — by a still more po- 
tent enchanter than even Handel or Beethoven or 
Schubert ! 

There was a certain Lord Cray, for whom Lintot 
had built some laborers’ cottages in Hertfordshire, 
and I sometimes went there to superintend the 
workmen. When the cottages were finished, Lord 
Cray and his wife (a very charming, middle-aged 
lady) came to see them, and were much pleased 
with all that had been done, and also seemed to be 
much interested in m^, of all people in the world! 
and a few days later I received a card of invitation 
to their house in town for a concert. 

At first I felt much too shy to go ; but Mr. Lintot 
insisted that it was my duty to do so, as it might 
lead to business ; so that when the night came, I 
screwed up my courage to the sticking-place, and 
went. 

That evening was all enchantment, or would have 
been but for the somewhat painful feeling that I 
was such an outsider. 

But I was always well content to be the least ob- 
served of all observers, and felt happy in the secu- 
rity that here I should at least be left alone ; that 
no perfect stranger would attempt to put me at my 
ease by making me the butt of his friendly and fa- 
miliar banter ; that no gartered duke, or belted earl 
(I have no doubt they were as plentiful there as 
blackberries, though they did not wear their insig- 
nia) would pat me on the back and ask me if I 


170 


PETER IBBETSON. 


would sooner look a bigger fool than I was, or be a 
bigger fool than I looked. (I have not found a rep- 
artee for that insidious question yet ; that is why it 
rankles so.) 

I had always heard that the English were a stilf 
people. There seemed to be no stiffness at Lady 
Cray’s ; nor was there any facetiousness ; it put one 
at one’s ease merely to look at them. They were 
mostly big, and strong, and healthy, and quiet, and 
good-humored, with soft and pleasantly-modulated 
voices. The large, well-lighted rooms were neither 
hot nor cold ; there were beautiful pictures on the 
walls, and an exquisite scent of flowers came from 
an immense conservatory. I had never been to 
such a gathering before; all was new and a sur- 
prise, and very much to my taste, I confess. It 
was my first glimpse of “ Society and last — but 
one ! 

There were crowds of people — but no crowd; 
everybody seemed to know everybody else quite 
intimately, and to resume conversations begun an 
hour ago somewhere else. 

Presently these conversations were hushed, and 
Grisi and Mario sang ! It was as much as I could 
do to restrain my enthusiasm and delight. I could 
have shouted out loud — I could almost have sung 
myself ! 

In the midst of the applause that followed that 
heavenly duet, a lady and gentleman came into the 
room, and at the sight of that lady a new interest 
came into my life; and all the old half -forgotten 


PETER IBBETSON. 


171 


sensations of mute pain and rapture that the beau- 
ty of Madame Seraskier used to make me feel as a 
child were revived once more; but with a depth 
and intensity, in comparison, that were as a strong 
man’s barytone to a small boy’s treble. 

It was the quick, sharp, cruel blow, the coup de 
poignard^ that beauty of the most obvious, yet 
subtle, consummate, and highly-organized order can 
deal to a thoroughly prepared victim. 

And what a thoroughly prepared victim was I ! 
A poor, shy, over-susceptible, virginal savage— Tin- 
eas, the son of Chingachgook, astray for the first 
time in a fashionable London drawing-room. 

A chaste mediaeval knight, born out of his due 
time, ascetic both from reverence and disgust, to 
whom woman in the abstract was the one religion ; 
in the concrete, the cause of fifty disenchantments 
a day ! 

A lusty, love - famished, warm-blooded pagan, 
stranded in the middle of the nineteenth century ; 
in whom some strange inherited instinct had plant- 
ed a definite, complete, and elaborately-finished con- 
ception of what the ever-beloved shape of woman 
should be — from the way the hair should grow on 
her brow and her temples and the nape of her neck, 
down to the very rhythm that should regulate the 
length and curve and position of every single indi- 
vidual toe ! and who had found, to his pride and de- 
light, that his preconceived ideal was as near to 
that of Phidias as if he had lived in the time of 
Pericles and Aspasia. 


172 


PETER IBBETSON. 


For such was this poor scribe, and such he had 
been from a child, until this beautiful lady first 
swam into his ken. 

She was so tall that her eyes seemed almost on 
a level with mine, but she moved with the alert 
lightness and grace of a small person. Her thick, 
heavy hair was of a dark coppery brown, her com- 
plexion clear and pale, her eyebrows and eyelashes 
black, her eyes a light bluish gray. Her nose was 
short and sharp, and rather tilted at the tip, and 
her red mouth large and very mobile; and here, 
deviating from my preconceived ideal, she showed 
me how tame a preconceived ideal can be. Her 
perfect head was small, and round her long, thick 
throat two slight creases went parallel, to make 
what French sculptors call le collier de Venus ; the 
skin of her neck was like a white camellia, and slen- 
der and square-shouldered as she was, she did not 
show a bone. She was that beautiful type the 
French define as la fausse maigre, which does not 
mean a false, thin woman.” 

She seemed both thoughtful and mirthful at once, 
and genial as I had never seen any one genial be- 
fore — a person to confide in, to tell all one’s trou- 
bles to, without even an introduction ! When she 
laughed she showed both top and bottom teeth, 
which were perfect, and her eyes nearly closed, so 
that they could no longer be seen for the thick 
lashes that fringed both upper and under eyelids ; 
at which time the expression of her face was so 
keenly, cruelly sweet that it went through one like 


PETER IBBETSON. 


173 


a knife. And then the laugh would suddenly cease, 
her full lips would meet, and her eyes beam out 
again like two mild gray suns, benevolently humor- 
ous and kindly inquisitive, and full of interest in 
everything and everybody around her. But there 
— I cannot describe her any more than one can de- 
scribe a beautiful tune. 

Out of those magnificent orbs kindness, kindness, 
kindness was shed like a balm; and after a while, 
by chance, that balm was shed for a few moments 
on me, to my sweet but terrible confusion. Then I 
saw that she asked my hostess who I was, and re- 
ceived the answer ; on which she shed her balm on 
me for one moment more, and dismissed me from 
her thoughts. 

Madame Grisi sang again — Desdemona’s song 
from Othello — and the beautiful lady thanked the 
divine singer, whom she seemed to know quite inti- 
mately ; and I thought her thanks — Italian thanks 
— even diviner than the song — not that I could quite 
understand them or even hear them well — I was 
too far ; but she thanked with eyes and hands and 
shoulders — slight, happy movements — as well as 
words ; surely the sweetest and sincerest words ever 
spoken. 

She was much surrounded and made up to — evi- 
dently a person of great importance ; and I ventured 
to ask another shy man standing in my corner who 
she was, and he answered — 

‘‘ The Duchess of Towers.’’ 

She did not stay long, and when she departed all 


174 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


turned dull and commonplace that had seemed so 
bright before she came ; and seeing that it was not 
necessary to bid my hostess good-night and thank 
her for a pleasant evening, as we did in Fenton ville, 
I got myself out of the house and walked back to 

my lodgings an ah 
tered man. 

I should probably 
never meet that love- 
ly young duchess 
again, and certainly 
never know her; but 
her shaft had gone 
straight and true into 
my very heart, and I 
felt how well barbed 
it was, beyond all 
possibility of its ever 
being torn out of 
that blessed wound ; 
might this never 
heal ; might it bleed 
on forever! 

She would be an 



THE DUCHESS OF TOWERS. 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


175 


ideal in my lonely life, to live up to in thought and 
word and deed. An instinct which I felt to be infal- 
lible told me she was as good as she was fair — 

“Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 

The love of love.” 

And just as Madame Seraskier’s image was fading 
away, this new star had arisen to guide me by its 
light, though seen but for a moment ; breaking once, 
through a parted cloud, I knew in which portion of 
the heavens it dwelt and shone apart, among the 
fairest constellations ; and ever after turned my face 
that way. N^evermore in my life would I do or say 
or think a mean thing, or an impure, or an unkind 
one, if I could help it. 


Next day, as we walked to the Foundling Hos- 
pital for divine service, Mrs. Lintot severely deigned 
— under protest, as it were — to cross-examine me on 
the adventures of the evening. 

I did not mention the Duchess of Towers, nor was 
I able to describe the different ladies’ dresses ; but 
I described everything else in a manner I thought 
calculated to interest her deeply — the flowers, the 
splendid pictures and curtains and cabinets, the 
beautiful music, the many lords and ladies gay. 

She disapproved of them all. 

‘‘Existence on such an opulent scale was uncon- 
ducive to any qualities of real sterling value, either 


176 


PETER IBBETSON. 


moral or intellectual. Give lier^ for one, plain living 
and high thinking ! 

‘‘ By-the-way,” she asked, “what kind of supper 
did they give you ? Something extremely recherche^ 
I have no doubt. Ortolans, nightingales’ tongues, 
pearls dissolved in wine ?” 

Candor obliged me to confess there had been no 
supper, or that if there had I had managed to miss 
it. I suggested that perhaps everybody had dined 
late ; and all the pearls, I told her, were on the 
ladies’ necks and in their hair ; and not feeling hun- 
gry, I could not wish them anywhere else ; and the 
nightingales’ tongues were in their throats to sing 
heavenly Italian duets with. 

“And they call that hospitality!” exclaimed 
Lintot, who loved his supper ; and then, as he was 
fond of summing up and laying down the law when 
o;ice his wife had given him the lead, he did so to 
the effect that though the great were all very well 
in their superficial way, and might possess many 
external charms for each other, and for all who were 
so deplorably weak as to fall within the sphere of 
their attraction, there was a gulf between the likes 
of them and the likes of us, which it would be bet- 
ter not to try and bridge if one wished to preserve 
one’s independence and one’s self-respect ; unless, of 
course, it led to business; and this, he feared, it 
would never do with me. 

“ They take you up one day and they drop you 
like a ’ot potato the next ; and, moreover, my dear 
Peter,” he concluded, affectionately linking his arm 


PETER IBBETSON. 


177 


in mine, as was often his way when we walked to- 
gether (although he was twelve good inches shorter 
than myself), “ inequality of social condition is a bar 
to any real intimacy. It is something like disparity 
of physical stature. One can walk arm in arm only 
with a man of about one’s own size.” 

This summing up seemed so judicious, so incontro- 
vertible, that feeling quite deplorably weak enough 
to fall within the sphere of Lady Cray’s attraction 
if I saw much of her, and thereby losing my self- 
respect, I was deplorably weak enough not to leave 
a card on her after the happy evening I had spent 
at her house; 

Snob that I was, I dropped her — “like a ’ot po- 
tato ” for fear of her dropping me. 

Besides which I had on my conscience a guilty, 
snobby feeling that in merely external charms at 
least these fine people were more to my taste than 
the charmed circle of my kind old friends the Lin- 
tots, however inferior they might be to these (for 
all that I knew) in sterling qualities of the heart 
and head — just as I found the outer aspect of Park 
Lane and Piccadilly more attractive than that of 
Pentonville, though possibly the latter may have 
been the more wholesome for such as I to live in. 

But people who can get Mario and Grisi to come 
and sing for them (and the Duchess of Towers to 
come and listen) ; people whose walls are covered 
with beautiful pictures ; people for whom the smooth 
and harmonious ordering of all the little external 
things of social life has become a habit and a profes- 
12 


178 


PETER IBBETSON. 


sion — such people are not to be dropped without a 
pang. 

So with a pang I went back to my usual round as 
though nothing had happened ; but night and day 
the face of the Duchess of Towers was ever present 
to me, like a fixed idea that dominates a life. 


On reading and rereading these past pages, I find 
that I have been unpardonably egotistic, uncon- 
scionably prolix and diffuse; and with such small 
beer to chronicle ! 

And yet I feel that if I strike out this, I must 
also strike out that ; which would lead to my strik- 
ing out all, in sheer discouragement ; and I have a 
tale to tell which is more than worth the telling ! 

Once having got into the way of it, I suppose, 
I must have found the temptation to talk about 
myself irresistible. 

It is evidently a habit easy to acquire, even in old 
age — perhaps especially in old age, for it has never 
been my habit through life. I would sooner have 
talked to you about yourself, reader, or about you 
to somebody else — your friend, or even your enemy ; 
or about them to you. 

But, indeed, at present, and until I die, I am with- 
out a soul to talk to about anybody or anything 
worth speaking of, so that most of my talking is 
done in pen and ink — a one-sided conversation, O 
patient reader, with yourself. I am the most lonely 
old man in the world, although perhaps the happiest. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


179 


Still, it is not always amusing where I live, cheer- 
fully awaiting my translation to another sphere. 

There is the good chaplain, it is true, and the good 
priest ; who talk to me about myself a little too much, 
methinks ; and the doctor, who talks to me about 
the priest and the chaplain, which is better. He 
does not seem to like them. He is a very witty man. 

But, my brother maniacs ! 

They are lamentably comme tout le monde^ after 
all. They are only interesting when the mad fit 
seizes them. When free from their awful complaint 
they are for the most part very common mortals: 
conventional Philistines, dull dogs like myself, and 
dull dogs do not like each other. 

Two of the most sensible (one a forger, the other 
a kleptomaniac on an important scale) are friends of 
mine. They are fairly well educated, respectable 
city men, clean, solemn, stodgy, punctilious, and re- 
signed, but they are both unhappy; not because 
they are cursed with the double brand of madness 
and crime, and have forfeited their freedom in con- 
sequence ; but because they find there are so few 
“ladies and gentlemen” in a criminal lunatic asy- 
lum, and they have always been used to “ the society 
of ladies and gentlemen.” Were it not for this, they 
would be well content to live here. And each is in 
the habit of confiding to me that he considers the 
other a very high-minded, trustworthy fellow, and 
all that, but not altogether “ quite a gentleman.” I 
do not know what they consider me ; they probably 
confide that to each other. 


180 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


Can anything be less odd, less eccentric or inter* 
esting ? 

Another, when quite sane, speaks English with a 
French accent and demonstrative French gestures, 
and laments the lost glories of the old French re= 
gime, and affects to forget the simplest English words. 
He doesn’t know a word of French, however. But 
when his madness comes on, and he is put into a 
strait-waistcoat, all his English comes back, and very 
strong, fluent, idiomatic English it is, of the cock- 
neyest kind, with all its “ h’s ” duly transposed. 

Another (the most unpleasant and ugliest person 
here) has chosen me for the confidant of his past 
amours ; he gives me the names and dates and all 
The less I listen the more he confides. He makej 
me sick. What can I do to prevent his believing 
that I believe him ? I am tired of killing people for 
lying about women. If I call him a liar and a cad, 
it may wake in him Heaven knows what dormant 
frenzy — for I am quite in the dark as to the nature 
of his mental infirmity. 

Another, a weak but amiable and well-intentioned 
youth, tries to think that he is passionately fond of 
music ; but he is so exclusive, if you please, that he 
can only endure Bach and Beethoven, and when he 
hears Mendelssohn or Chopin, is obliged to leave the 
room. If I want to please him I whistle “ Le Bon 
Eoi Dagobert,” and tell him it is the motif of one 
of Bach’s fugues ; and to get rid of him I whistle it 
again and tell him it is one of Chopin’s impromptus. 
What his madness is I can never be quite sure, for 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


181 


he is very close, but have heard that he is fond of 
roasting cats alive ; and that the mere sight of a cat 
IS enough to rouse his terrible propensity, and drive 
all wholesome, innocent, harmless, natural affecta- 
tion out of his head. 

There is a painter here who (like others one has 
met outside) believes himself the one living painter 
worthy of the name. Indeed, he has forgotten the 
names of all the others, and can only despise and 
abuse them in the lump. He triumphantly shows 
you his own work, which consists of just the kind of 
crude, half-clever, irresponsible, impressionist daubs 
you would expect from an amateur who talks in 
that way ; and you wonder why on earth he should 
be in a lunatic asylum, of all places in the world. 
And (just as would happen outside, again) some of 
his fellow-sufferers take him at his own valuation 
and believe him a great genius ; some of them want 
to kick him for an impudent impostor (but that he 
is so small) ; and the majority do not care. 

His mania is arson, poor fellow ! and when the 
terrible wish comes over him to set the place on fire 
he forgets his artistic conceit, and his mean, weak, 
silly face becomes almost grand. 

And with the female inmates it is just the same. 
There is a lady who has spent twenty years of her 
life here. Her father was a small country doctor, 
called Snogget ; her husband an obscure, hard-work- 
ing curate ; and she is absolutely normal, common- 
place, and even vulgar. For her hobby is to dis- 
course of well-boru aud titled people and gQ^nty 


182 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


families, with whom (and with no others) it has ah 
ways been her hope and desire to mix ; and is still, 
though her hair is nearly white, and she is still here. 
She thinks and talks and cares about nothing else 
but smart people,” and has conceived a very warm 
regard for me, on account of Lieutenant-colonel Ib- 
betson, of Ibbetson Hall, Hopshire; not because I 
killed him and was sentenced to be hanged for it, 
or because he was a greater criminal than I (all of 
which is interesting enough) ; but because he was my 
relative, and that through him I must be distantly 
connected, she thinks, with the Ibbetsons of Lech- 
mere — whoever they may be, and whom neither she 
nor I have ever met (indeed, I had never heard of 
them), but whose family history she knows almost 
by heart. What can be tamer, duller, more prosaic, 
more sordidly humdrum, more hopelessly sane, more 
characteristic of common, under -bred, provincial 
feminine cackle ? 

And yet this woman, in a fit of conjugal jealousy, 
murdered her own children; and her father went 
mad in consequence, and her husband cut his throat. 

In fact, during their lucid intervals it would never 
enter one’s mind that they were mad at all, they are 
so absolutely like the people one meets every day in 
the world — such narrow-minded idiots, such deadly 
bores ! One might as well be back in Pentonville or 
Hopshire again, or live in Passionate Brompton (as 
I am told it is called) ; or even in Belgravia, for that 
matter ! 

For we have a young lord and a middle-aged bar- 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


18 a 


onet — a shocking pair, who should not be allowed to 
live ; but for family influence they would be doing 
their twenty years’ penal servitude in jail, instead 
of living comfortably sequestered here. Like Oui- 
da’s high-born heroes, they stick to their order,” 
and do not mingle with the rest of us. They ig- 
nore us so completely that we cannot help looking 
up to them in spite of their vices — just as we should 
do outside. 

And we, of the middle class, we stick to our order, 
too, and do not mingle with the small shop-keep- 
ers — who do not mingle with the laborers, artisans, 
and mechanics — who (alas, for them!) have nobody 
to look down upon but each other — but they do 
not ; and are the best-bred people in the place. 

Such are we ! It is only when our madness is 
upon us that we cease to be commonplace, and wax 
tragical and great, or else original and grotesque 
and humorous, with that true deep humor that com- 
pels both our laughter and our tears, and leaves us 
older, sadder, and wiser than it found us. 

“Sunt lacrimse rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.” 

(So much, if httle more, can I recall of the benign 
Yirgil.) 

And now to my small beer again, which will have 
more of a head to it henceforward. 


Thus did I pursue my solitary way, like Bryant’s 


184 


PETER IBBETSON. 


'Water-fowl, only with a less definite purpose before 
me — till at last there dawned for me an ever-mem- 
orable Saturday in June. 

I had again saved up enough money to carry my 
long longed-for journey to Paris into execution. 
The Semens boiler got up its steam, the Seine’s white 
awning was put up for me as well as others ; and on 
a beautiful cloudless English morning I stood by the 
man at the wheel, and saw St. Paul’s and London 
Bridge and the Tower fade out of sight ; with what 
hope and joy I cannot describe. I almost forgot 
that I was me ! 

And next morning (a beautiful French morning) 
how I exulted as I went up the Champs Elysees and 
passed under the familiar Arc de Triomphe on my 
way to the Rue de la Pompe, Passy, and heard all 
around the familiar tongue that I still knew so well, 
and rebreathed the long-lost and half-forgotten, but 
now keenly remembered, fragrance of the genius 
loci / that vague, light, indescribable, almost imper- 
ceptible scent of a place, that is so heavily laden 
with the past for those who have lived there long 
ago — the most subtly intoxicating ether that can be ! 

When I came to the meeting of the Rue de la Tour 
and the Rue de la Pompe, and, looking in at the 
grocer’s shop at the corner, I recognized the hand- 
some mustachioed groceress, Madame Liard (whose 
mustache twelve prosperous years had turned gray), 
I was almost faint with emotion. Had any youth 
been ever so moved by that face before ? 

There, behind the window (which was now of 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


185 


plate-glass), and among splendid ISTapoleonic wares 
of a later day, were the same old India-rubber balls 
in colored net-work ; the same quivering lumps of 
fresh paste in brown paper, that looked so cool and 
tempting ; the same three-sou boxes of water-colors 
(now marked seventy-five centimes), of which I had 
consumed so many in the service of Mimsey Seras- 
kier ! I went in and bought one, and resmelt with 
delight the smell of aU my by-gone dealings there, 
and received her familiar sounding — 

‘‘ Merci, monsieur ! faudrait-il autre chose ?” as if 
it had been a blessing ; but I was too shy to throw 
myself into her arms and tell her that I was the 
“lone, wandering, but not lost” Gogo Pasquier. 
She might have said — 

“ Eh bien, et apres 
The day had begun well. 

Like an epicure, I deliberated whether I should 
walk to the old gate in the Eue de la Pompe, and 
up the avenue and back to our old garden, or make 
my way round to the gap in the park hedge that 
we had worn of old by our frequent passage in and 
out, to and from the Bois de Boulogne. 

I chose the latter as, on the whole, the more prom- 
ising in exquisite gradations of delight. 

The gap in the park hedge, indeed! The park 
hedge had disappeared, the very park itself was 
gone, cut up, demolished, all parcelled out into 
small gardens, with trim white villas, except where 
a railway ran through a deep cutting in the chalk. 
A train actually roared and panted by, and choked 


186 


PETER IBBETSON. 


me with its filthy steam as I looked round in 
stupefaction on the ruins of my long - cherished 
hope. 

If that train had run over me and I had survived 
it, it could not have given me a greater shock ; it all 
seemed too cruel and brutal an outrage. 

A winding carriage-road had been pierced through 
the very heart of the wilderness ; and on this, neatly- 
paled little brand-new gardens abutted, and in these 
I would recognize, here and there, an old friend in 
the shape of some well-remembered tree that I had 
often climbed as a boy, and which had been left 
standing out of so many, but so changed by the loss 
of its old surroundings that it had a tame, caged, 
transplanted look — almost apologetic, and as if 
ashamed of being found out at last ! 

J^othing else remained. Little hills and cliffs and 
valleys and chalk -pits that had once seemed big 
had been levelled up, or away, and I lost my bear- 
ings altogether, and felt a strange, creeping chill of 
blankness and bereavement. 

But how about the avenue and my old home ? I 
hastened back to the Eue de la Pompe with the 
quick step of aroused anxiety. The avenue was 
gone — blocked within a dozen yards of the gate by 
a huge brick building covered with newly -painted 
trellis-work ! My old house was no more, but in its 
place a much larger and smarter edifice of sculpt- 
ured stone. The old gate at least had not disap- 
peared, nor the porter’s lodge; and I feasted my 
sorrowful eyes on these poor remains, that looked 









188 


PETEE IBBETSOlSr. 


snubbed and shabby and out of place in the midst 
of all this new splendor. 

Presently a smart concierge, with a beautiful pink- 
ribboned cap, came out and stared at me for a while, 
and inquired if monsieur desired anything. 

I could not speak. 

“Est-ce que monsieur est indispose? Cette cha- 
leur ! Monsieur ne parle pas le FranQais, peut-etre ?” 

When I found my tongue I explained to her that 
I had* once lived there in a modest house overlook- 
ing the street, but which had been replaced by this 
much more palatial abode. 

“ O, oui, monsieur — on a balaye tout §a !” she 
replied. 

“ Balaye !” What an expression for me to hear ! 

And she explained how the' changes had taken 
place, and how valuable the property had become. 
She showed me a small plot of garden, a fragment 
of my old garden, that still remained, and where 
the old apple-tree might still have been, but that it 
had been sawed away. I saw the stump ; that did 
duty for a rustic table. 

Presently, looking over a new wall, I saw another 
small garden, and in it the ruins of the old shed 
where I had found the toy wheelbarrow — soon to 
disappear, as they were building there too. 

I asked after all the people I could think of, be- 
ginning with those of least interest — the butcher, 
the baker, the candlestick-maker. 

Some were dead ; some had retired and had left 
their commerce ” to their children and children-in- 


PETER IBBETSOIT. 


189 


law. Three different school-masters had kept the 
school since I had left. Thank Heaven, there was 
still the school — much altered, it is true. I had for- 
gotten to look for it. 

She had no re- 
membrance of my 
name, or the Seras- 
kiers’ — I asked, with 
a beating heart. W e 
had left no trace. 

Twelve short years 
had effaced all mem- 
ory of us ! But she 
told me that a gen- 
tleman, decore^ mais 
tomhe en enfance^ 
lived at a maison de 
sante in the Chaussee 
de la Muette, close 
by, and that his 
name was le Major 
Duquesnois; and 
thither I went, af- 
ter rewarding and 
warmly thanking her. 

I inquired for le Major Duquesnois, and was told 
he was out for a walk, and I soon found him, much 
aged and bent, and leaning on the arm of a Sister 
of Charity. I was so touched that I had to pass 
him two or three times before I could speak. He 
was so small — so pathetically small ! 



THE OLD APPLE-TREE. 


100 


Pi:TEK IBBETSOIT. 


It was a long time before I could give him an 
idea of who I was — Gogo Pasquier ! 

Then after a while he seemed to recall the past a 
little. 

Ha, ha ! Gogo — gentil petit Gogo ! — oui — oui 
— I’exercice ? Portez . . . arrrmes ! arrmes . . . bras ? 
Et Mimse ? bonne petite Mimse ! toujours mal a la 
tete?” 

He could just remember Madame Seraskier ; and 
repeated her name several times and said, ‘‘Ah ! elle 
etait bien belle, Madame Seraskier !” 

In the old days of fairy-tale telling, when he 
used to get tired and I still wanted him to go on, 
he had arranged that if, in the course of the story, 
he suddenly brought in the word “ Cric,” and I 
failed to immediately answer “Crac,’’ the story 
would be put off till our next walk (to be continued 
in our next !) and he was so ingenious in the way 
he brought in the terrible word that I often fell 
into the trap, and had to forego my delight for that 
pfternoon. 

i suddenly thought of saying “ Cric !” and he 
immediately said “ Crac !” and laughed in a touch- 
ing, senile way — “ Cric ! — Crac ! c’est bien 9a !” and 
then he became quite serious and said — 

“ Et la suite au prochain numero 

After this he began to cough, and the good Sister 
said — 

“ Je crains que monsieur ne le fatigue un peu 

So I had to bid him good-bye ; and after 1 had 
squeezed and kissed his hand, he made me a most 


PETER IBBETSOK. 


191 


courtly bow, as though I had been a complete 
stranger. 

I rushed away, tossing up my arms like a mad- 
man in my pity and sorrow for my dear old friend, 



M. LE MAJOR, 


and my general regret and disenchantment. I made 
for the Bois de Boulogne, there to find, instead of 
the old rabbit -and -roebuck -haunted thickets and 
ferneries and impenetrable undergrowth, a huge ar- 


m 


PETER IBBETSON. 


tificial lake, with row-boats and skiffs, and a rock- 
ery that would have held its own in Kosher ville 
gardens. And on the way thither, near the iron 
gates in the fortifications, whom should I meet but 
one of my friends the couriers, on his w^ay from St. 
Cloud to the Tuileries! There he rode with his 
arms jogging up and down, and his low glazed hat, 
and his immense jack-boots, just the same as ever, 
never rising in his stirrups, as his horse trotted to 
the jingle of the sweet little chime round its neck. 

Alas ! his coat was no longer the innocent, unso- 
phisticated blue and silver livery of the bourgeois 
king, but the hateful green and gold of another re- 
gime. 

Farther on the Mare d’Auteuil itself had suffered 
change and become respectable — imperially respect- 
able. No more frogs or newts or water- beetles, I 
felt sure ; but gold and silver fish in vulgar Napole- 
onic profusion. 

No words that I can find would give any idea of 
the sadness and longing that filled me as I trod once 
more that sunlit grassy brink — the goal of my fond 
ambition for twelve long years. 

It was Sunday, and many people were about — 
many children, in their best Sunday clothes and on 
their best behavior, discreetly throwing crumbs to 
the fish. A new generation, much quieter and bet- 
ter dressed than my cousins and I, who had once 
so filled the solitude with the splashing of our nets, 
and the excited din of our English voices. 

As I sat down on a bench by the old Avillow 


PETER IBBETSON. 


193 


(where. the rat lived), and gazed and gazed, it almost 
surprised me that the very intensity of my desire 
did not of itself suffice to call up the old familiar 
faces and forms, and conjure away these modern in- 
truders. The power to do. this seemed almost within 
my reach; I willed and willed and willed with all 
my might, but in vain ; I could not cheat my sight 
or hearing for a moment. There they remained, 
unconscious and undisturbed, those happy, well-man- 


GREEN AND GOLD. 


nered, well-appointed little French people, and fed 
the gold and silver fish ; and there, with an aching 
heart, I left them. 

Oh, surely, surely, I cried to myself, we ought to 
13 



194 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


find some means of possessing the past more fully 
and completely than we do. Life is not worth liv- 
ing for many of us if a want so desperate and yet so 
natural can never be satisfied. Memory is but a 
poor, rudimentary thing that we had better be with- 
out, if it can only lead us to the verge of consumma- 
tion like this, and madden us with a desire it cannot 
slake. The touch of a vanished hand, the sound of 
a voice that is still, the tender grace of a day that is 
dead, should be ours forever, at our beck and call, by 
some exquisite and quite conceivable illusion of the 
senses. 

Alas ! alas ! I have hardly the hope of ever meet- 
ing my beloved ones again in another life. Oh, to 
meet their too dimly remembered forms in this^ just 
as they once were, by some trick of my own brain ! 
To see them with the eye, and hear them with the 
ear, and tread with them the old obliterated ways as 
in a waking dream ! It would be well worth going 
mad to become such a self-conjurer as that. 

Thus musing sadly, I reached St. Cloud, and ihat^ 
at least, and the Boulogne that led to it, had not 
been very perceptibly altered, and looked as though 
I had only left them a week ago. The sweet aspect 
from the bridge, on either side and beyond, filled 
me with the old enchantment. There, at least, the 
glory had not departed. 

I hastened through the gilded gates and up the 
broad walk to the grand cascade. There, among 
the lovely wreathed urns and jars of geranium, still 
sat or reclined or gesticulated the old, unalterable 


PETER IBBETSOIT. 


195 


gods ; there squatted the grimly genial monsters in 
granite and marble and bronze, still spouting their 
endless gallons for the delectation of hot Parisian 
eyes. Unchanged, and to all appearance unchange- 
able (save that they were not nearly so big as I 
had imagined), their cold, smooth, ironical patience 
shamed and braced me into better cheer. Beauti- 
ful, hideous, whatever you please, they seemed to 
revel in the very sense of their insensibility of their 
eternal stability — their stony scorn of time and wind 
and weather, and the peevish, weak-kneed, short- 
lived discontent of man. It was good to fondly pat 
them on the back once more — when one could reach 
them — and cling to them for a little while, after all 
the dust and drift and ruin I had been tramping 
through all day. 

Indeed, they woke in me a healthy craving for 
all but foi^otten earthly joys — even for wretched 
meat and drink — so I went and ordered a sumptu- 
ous repast at the Tete Noire — a brand-new Tete 
Noire, alas ! quite white, all in stone and stucco, and 
without a history ! 

It was a beautiful sunset. Waiting for my din- 
ner, I gazed out of the first-floor window, and found 
balm for my disappointed and regretful spirit in all 
that democratic joyousness of French Sunday life. 
I had seen it over and over again just like that in 
the old days ; this^ at least, was like coming back 
home to something I had known and loved. 

The cafes on the little ‘‘ Place ” between the bridge 
and the park were full to overflowing. People chat- 


196 


PETER IBBETSON. 


ting over their consommations sat right out, almost 
into the middle of the square, so thickly packed that 
there was scarcely room for the busy, lively, white- 
aproned waiters to move between them. The air 
was full of the scent of trodden grass and maca- 
roons and French tobacco, blown from the park; of 
gay French laughter aird the ‘music of mirlitons; of 
a light dusty haze, shot with purple and gold by the 
setting sun. The river, alive with boats and canoes, 
repeated the glory of the sky, and the w ell-re rnem- 
bered, thickly- wooded hills rose before me, culmi- 
nating in the Lanterne de Diogene. 

I could have threaded all that maze of trees blind- 
folded. 

Two Koman pifferari came on to the Place and 
began to play an extraordinary and most exciting 
melody that almost drew me out of the window ; it 
seemed to have no particular form, no beginning or 
middle or end ; it went soaring higher and higher, 
like the song of a lark, with never a pause for breath, 
to the time of a maddening jig — a tarantella, per- 
haps — always on the strain and stress, always get- 
ting nearer and nearer to some shrill climax of 
. ecstasy quite high up and away, beyond the scope of 
earthly music ; while the persistent drone kept buzz- 
ing of the earth and the impossibility to escape. 
All so gay, so sad, there is no name for it ! 

Two little deformed and discarded-looking dwarfs, 
beggars, brother and sister, with large toothless gaps 
for mouths and no upper lip, began to dance ; and 
the crowd laughed and applauded. Higher and 



198 


PETER IBBETSON. 


higher, nearer and nearer to the impossible, rose the 
quick, piercing notes of the pilfero. Heaven seemed 
almost within reach — the nirvana of musics after its 
quick madness — the region of the ultra-treble that 
lies beyond the ken of ordinary human ears ! 

A carriage and four, with postilions and ‘‘guides,” 
came clattering royally down the road from the pal- 
ace, and dispersed the crowd as it bowled on its way 
to the bridge. In it were two ladies and two gen- 
tlemen. One of the ladies was the young Empress 
of the French ; the other looked up at my window — 
for a moment, as in a soft flash of summer lightning, 
her face seemed ablaze with friendly recognition — 
with, a sweet glance of kindness and interest and 
surprise — a glance that pierced me like a sudden 
shaft of light from heaven. 

It was the Duchess of Towers ! 

I felt as though the bagpipes had been leading up 
to this ! In a moment more the carriage was out 
of sight, the sun had quite gone down, the pifferari 
had ceased to play and were walking round with the 
hat, and all was over. 

I dined, and made my way back to Paris on foot 
through the Bois de Boulogne, and by the Mare 
d’Auteuil, and saw my old friend the water-rat 
swim across it, trailing the gleam of his wake after 
him like a silver comet’s tail. 

“Allons-nous-en, gens de la noce ! 

Allons-nous-en chacun chez nous !" 

So sang a festive wedding-party as it went mer- 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


199 


rily arm in arm through the long high street of 
Passy, with a gleeful trust that would have filled 
the heart with envy but for sad experience of the 
vanity of human wishes. 



THE OLD WATER-RAT. 


Chacun chez nous ! How charming it sounds ! 

Was each so sure that when he reached his home 
he would find his heart’s desire? Was the bride- 
groom himself so very sure ? 

The heart’s desire — the heart’s regret ! I flattered 
myself that I had pretty well sounded the utter- 
most depths of both on that eventful Sunday ! 


200 


PETEE IBBETSON. 



Ipart 3fourtb, 


GOT back to my hotel in the Eue de la Mi- 
chodiere. 

Prostrate with emotion and fatigue, the tarantella 
still jingling in my ears, and that haunting, beloved 
face, with its ineffable smile still printed on the 
retina of my closed eyes, I fell asleep. 

And then I dreamed a dream, and the first phase 
of my real, inner life began ! 


PETER IBBETSON. 


201 


All the events of the day, distorted and exagger- 
ated and jumbled together after the usual manner of 
dreams, wove themselves into a kind of nightmare 
and oppression. I was on my way to my old abode ; 
everything that I met or saw was grotesque and 
impossible, yet had now the strange, vague charm 
of association and reminiscence, now the. distressing 
sense of change and loss and desolation. 

As I got near to the avenue gate, instead of the 
school on my left there was a prison ; and at the 
door a little thick -set jailer, three feet high and 
much deformed, and a little deformed jaileress no 
bigger than himself, were cunningly watching me 
out of the corners of their eyes, and toothlessly 
smiling. Presently they began to waltz together to 
an old, familiar tune, with their enormous keys 
dangling at their sides ; and they looked so funny 
that I laughed and applauded. But soon I per- 
ceived that their crooked faces were not really 
funny ; indeed, they were fatal and terrible in the 
extreme, and I was soon conscious that these dead- 
ly dwarfs were trying to waltz between me and 
the avenue gate for which I was bound — to cut me 
off, that they might run me into the prison, where 
it was their custom to hang people of a Monday 
morning. 

In an agony of terror I made a rush for the avenue 
gate, and there stood the Duchess of Towers, with 
mild surprise in her eyes and a kind smile — a heav- 
enly vision of strength and reality. 

“ You are not dreaming true 1” she said. ‘‘Don’t 


202 


PETER IBBETSON. 


be afraid — those little people don’t exist ! Give me 
your hand and come in here.” 

And as I did so she waved the troglodytes away, 
and they vanished; and I felt that this was no 
longer a dream, but something else — some strange 
thing that had happened to me, some new life that 
I had woke up to. 

For at the touch of her hand my consciousness, 
my sense of being I, myself, which hitherto in my 
dream (as in all previous dreams up to then) had 
been only partial, intermittent, and vague, suddenly 
blazed into full, consistent, practical activity — just 
as it is in life, when one is well awake and much in- 
terested in what is going on — only with perceptions 
far keener and more alert. 

I knew perfectly who I was and what I was, and 
remembered all the events of the previous day. I 
was conscious that my real body, undressed and in 
bed, now lay fast asleep in a small room on the 
fourth floor of an hotel garni in the Kue de la 
Michodiere. I knew this perfectly; and yet here 
was my body, too, just as substantial, with all my 
clothes on ; my boots rather dusty, my shirt-collar 
damp with the heat, for it was hot. With my dis- 
engaged hand I felt in my trousers - pocket ; there 
were my London latch-key, my purse, my penknife ; 
my handkerchief in the breast-pocket of my coat, 
and in its tail-pockets my gloves and pipe-case, and 
the little water -color box I had bought that morn- 
ing. I looked at my watch; it was going, and 
marked eleven. I pinched myself, I coughed, I did 


PETER IBBETSON. 


203 


all one usually does under the pressure of some im- 
mense surprise, to assure myself that I was awake; 
and I was^ and yet here I stood, actually hand in 
hand with a great lady to whom I had never been 
introduced (and who seemed much tickled at my 
confusion) ; and staring now at her, now at my old 
school. 

The prison had tumbled down like a house of 
cards, and lo ! in its place was M. Saindou’s maison 
d? education^ just as it had been of old. I even recog- 
nized on the yellow wall the stamp of a hand in dry 
mud, made fifteen years ago by a day boy called 
Parisot, who had fallen down in the gutter close by, 
and thus left his mark on getting up again; and 
it had remained there for months, till it had been 
whitewashed away in the holidays. Here it was 
anew, after fifteen years. 

The swallows were flying and twittering. A yel- 
low omnibus was drawn up to the gates of the 
school; the horses stamped and neighed, and bit 
each other, as French horses always did in those 
days. The driver swore at them perfunctorily. 

A crowd was looking on — le Pere et la Mere Fran- 
cois, Madame Liard, the grocer’s wife, and other peo- 
ple, whom I remembered at once with delight. Just 
in front of us a small boy and girl were looking on, 
lik e the rest, and I recognized the back and the 
cropped head and thin legs of Mimsey Seraskier. 

A barrel-organ was playing a pretty tune I knew 
quite well, and had forgotten. 

The school gates opened, and M. Saindou, proud 


204 


PETER IBBETSON. 


and full of self-importance (as he always was), and 
half a dozen boys whose faces and names were quite 
familiar to me, in smart white trousers and shining 
boots, and silken white bands round their left arms, 
got into the omnibus, and were driven away in a 
glorified manner — as it seemed — to heaven in a 
golden chariot. It was beautiful to see and hear. 

I was still holding the duchess’s hand, and felt the 
warmth of it through her glove ; it stole up my arm 
like a magnetic current. I was in Elysium ; a heav- 
enly sense had come over me that at last my periph- 
ery had been victoriously invaded by a spirit other 
than mine — a most powerful and beneficent spirit. 
There was a blessed fault in my impenetrable ar- 
mor of self, after all, and the genius of strength 
and charity and loving-kindness bad found it out. 

“ Now you’re dreaming tru^,” she said. “ Where 
are those boys going?” 

To church, to make j^emilre communion^'’ 
I replied. 

“That’s right. You’re dreaming true because 
I’ve got you by the hand. Do you know that 
tune ?” 

I listened, and the words belonging to it came out 
of the past and I said them to her, and she laughed 
again, with her eyes screwed up deliciously. 

“ Quite right — quite !” she exclaimed. “ How odd 
that you should know them ! How well you pro- 
nounce French for an Englishman! For you are 
Mr. Ibbetson, Lady Cray’s architect ?” 

I assented, and she let go my hand. 









a 



-lits^ 





I 




••V# 





206 


PETER IBBETSON. 


The street was full or people — familiar forms 
and faces and voices, chatting together and looking 
down the road after the yellow omnibus; old atti- 
tudes, old tricks of gait and manner, old forgotten 
French ways of speech — all as it was long ago. ’No- 
body noticed us, and we walked up the now deserted 
avenue. 

The happiness, the enchantment of it all ! Could 
it be that I was dead, that I had died suddenly in 
my sleep, at the hotel in the Rue de la Michodiere ? 
Could it be that the Duchess of Towers was dead 
too — had been killed by some accident on her way 
from St. Cloud to Paris ? and that, both having died 
so near each other, we had begun our eternal after- 
life in this heavenly fashion? 

That was too good to be true, I reflected ; some 
instinct told me that this was not death, but tran- 
scendent earthly life — and also, alas ! that it would 
not endure forever ! 

I was deeply conscious of every feature in her 
face, every movement of her body, every detail of 
her dress — more so than I could have been in actual 
life — and said to myself, ‘‘ Whatever this is, it is no 
dream.’’ But I felt there was about me the unspeak- 
able elation which can come to us only in our wak- 
ing moments when we are at our very best; and 
then only feebly, in comparison with this, and to 
many of us never. It never had to me, since that 
morning when I had found the little wheelbarrow. 

I was also conscious, however, that the avenue 
itself had a slight touch of the dream in it. It was 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


207 


no longer quite right, and was getting out of draw- 
ing and perspective, so to speak. I had lost my 
stay — the touch of her hand. 

‘‘ Are you still dreaming true, Mr. Ibbetson ?” 

“ I am afraid not quite,” I replied. 

“You must try b}^ yourself a little — try hard. 
Look at this house ; what is written on the portico?” 

I saw written in gold letters the words, “ Tete 
IS'oire,” and said so. 

She rippled with laughter, and said, “No; try 
again;” and just touched me with the tip of her 
finger for a moment. 

I tried again, and said, “ Parvis Notre Dame.” 

“ That’s rather better,” she said, and touched me 
again ; and I read, “ Parva sed Apta,” as I had so 
often read there before in old days. 

“And now look at that old house over there,” 
pointing to my old home ; “ how many windows are 
there in the top story ?” 

I said seven. 

“No; there are five. Look again!” and there 
were five ; and the whole house was exactly, down 
to its minutest detail, as it had been once upon a 
time. I could see Therese through one of the win- 
dows, making my bed. 

“ That’s better,” said the duchess ; “ you will soon 
do it — it’s very easy — ce rCest que le jpremier jpas ! 
My father taught me; you must always sleep on 
your back with your arms above your head, your 
hands clasped under it and your feet crossed, the 
right one over the left, unless you are left-handed ; 


208 


PETER IBBETSON. 



and you must never 
for a moment cease 
thinking of where 
you want to be in 
your dream till you 
are asleep and get 
there ; and you must 
never forget in your 
dream where and 
what you were when 
awake. You must 
join the dream on to 
reality. Don’t for- 
get. And now I will 
say good-bye; but 
before I go give me 
both your hands and 
look round every- 
where as far as your 
eye can see.” 

It was hard to look 
away from her ; her 
“it was hard to look away from hkr.” face drew my eyes, 

and through them all 
my heart; but I did as she told me, and took in 
the whole familiar scene, even to the distant woods 
of Yille d’Avray, a glimpse of which was visible 
through an opening in the trees ; even to the smoke 
of a train making its way to Yersailles, miles off; 
and the old telegraph, working its black arras on 
the top of Mont Yalerien. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


209 


“ Is it all right she asked. ‘‘ That’s well. Hence- 
forward, whenever yon come here, you will be safe 
as far as your sight can reach — from this spot — all 
through my introduction. See what it is to have a 
friend at court ! Ho more little dancing jailers ! 
And then you can gradually get farther by yourself. 

“ Out there, through that park, leads to the Bois 
de Boulogne — there’s a gap in the hedge you can 
get through ; but mind and make everything plain 
in front of you — true^ before you go a step farther, 
or else you’ll have to wake and begin it all over 
again. You have only to will it, and think of your- 
self as awake, and it will come — on condition, of 
course, that you have been there before. And mind, 
also, you must take care how you touch things or 
people — you may hear, and see, and smell ; but you 
mustn’t touch, nor pick flowers or leaves, nor move 
things about. It blurs the dream, like breathing on 
a window-pane. I don’t know why, but it does. 
You must remember that everything here is dead 
and gone by. With you and me it is different; 
we’re alive and real — that is, /am ; and there would 
seem to be no mistake about your being real too, 
Mr. Ibbetson, by the grasp of your hands. But 
you’re not; and why you are here, and what business 
you have in this, my particular dream, I cannot un- 
derstand; no living person has ever come into it 
before. I can’t make it out. I suppose it’s because 
I saw your reality this afternoon, looking out of 
window at the ‘Tete Hoire,’ and you arje just a 
stray figment of my overtired brain — a very agree- 
14 


210 


PETER IBBETSON. 


able figment, I admit ; but you don’t exist here just 
now — you can’t possibly ; you are somewhere else, 
Mr. Ibbetson ; dancing at Mabille, perhaps, or fast 
asleep somewhere, and dreaming of French churches 
and palaces, and public fountains, like a good young 
British architect — otherwise I shouldn’t talk to you 
like this, you may be sure ! 

‘‘ Never mind. I am very glad to dream that I 
have been of use to you, and you are very welcome 
here, if it amuses you to come — especially as you 
are only a false dream of mine, for what else can 
you be % And now I must leave you, so good-bye.” 

She disengaged her hands, and laughed her an- 
gelic laugh, and then turned towards the park. I 
watched her tall, straight figure and blowing skirts, 
and saw her follow some ladies and children into a 
thicket that I remembered well, and she was soon 
out of sight. 

I felt as if all warmth had gone out of my life ; 
as if a joy had taken flight ; as if a precious some- 
thing had withdrawn itself from my possession, and 
the gap in my periphery had closed again. 

Long I stood in thought, with my eyes fixed on 
the spot where she had disappeared ; and I felt in- 
clined to follow, but then considered this would not 
have been discreet. For although she was only a 
false dream of mine, a mere recollection of the ex- 
citing and eventful day, a stray figment of my over- 
tired and excited brain — a more than agreeable fig- 
ment (what else could she be !) — she was also a great 
lady, and had treated me, a perfect stranger and a 


PETER IBBETSOK. 


211 


perfect nobody, with singular courtesy and kindness ; 
which I repaid, it is true, with a love so deep and 
strong that my very life was hers, to do what she 
liked with, and always had been since I first saw her, 
and always would be as long as there was breath in 
my body ! But this did not constitute an acquaint- 
ance without a proper introduction, even in France — 
even in a dream. Even in dreams one must be polite, 
even to stray figments of one’s tired, sleeping brain. 

And then what business had slie^ in ihis^ my par- 
ticular dream — as she herself had asked of me? 

But was it a dream? I remembered my lodgings 
at Pentonville, that I had left yesterday morning. 
I remembered what I was — why I came to Paris ; I 
remembered the very bedroom at the Paris hotel 
where I was now fast asleep, its loudly-ticking clock, 
and all the meagre furniture. And here was I, 
broad awake and conscious, in the middle of an old 
avenue that had long ceased to exist — that had been 
built over by a huge brick edifice covered with 
newly-painted trellis -work. I saw it, this edifice, 
myself, only twelve hours ago. And yet here was 
everything as it had been when I was a child ; and 
all through the agency of this solid phantom of a 
lovely young English duchess, whose warm gloved 
hands I had only this minute been holding in mine ! 
The scent of her gloves was still in my palm. I 
looked at my watch ; it marked twenty-three min- 
utes to twelve. All this had happened in less than 
three-quarters of an hour ! 

Pondering over all this in hopeless bewilderment. 


212 


PETER IBBETSON. 


I turned my steps towards my old home, and, to my 
surprise, was just able to look over the garden wall, 
which I had once thought about ten feet high. 

Under the. old apple-tree in full bloom sat my 
mother, darning small socks ; with her flaxen side- 
curls (as it was her fashion to wear them) half-con- 
cealing her face. My emotion and astonishment 
were immense. My heart beat fast. I felt its pulse 
in my temples, and my breath was short. 

At a little green table that I remembered well sat 
a small boy, rather quaintly dressed in a by-gone 
fashion, with a frill round his wide shirt-collar, and 
his golden hair cut quite close at the top, and rather 
long at the sides and back. It was Gogo Pasquier. 
He seemed a very nice little boy. He had pen and 
ink and copy-book before him, and a gilt-edged vol- 
ume bound in red morocco. I knew it at a glance ; 
it was Elegant Extracts. The dog Medor lay asleep 
in the shade. The bees were droning among the 
nasturtiums and convolvulus. 

A little girl ran up the avenue from the porter’s 
lodge and pushed the garden gate, which rang the 
bell as it opened, and she went into the garden, and 
I followed her; but she took no notice of me, nor 
did the others. It was Mimsey Seraskier. 

I went and sat at my mother’s feet, and looked 
long in her face. 

I must not speak to her, nor touch her — not even 
touch her busy hand with my lips, or I should “ blur 
the dream.” 

I got up and looked over the boy Gogo’s shoulder. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


213 


He was translating Gray’s Elegy into French; he 
had not got very far, and seemed to be stumped by 
the line — 


“And leaves the world to darkness and to me.” 


Mimsey was silently looking over his other shoul- 
der, her thumb in her mouth, one arm* on the back 
of his chair. She seemed to be stumped also: it 
was an awkward line to translate. 

I stooped and put my hand to Medor’s nose, and 
felt his warm breath. He wagged his rudiment of 
a tail, and whimpered in his sleep. Mimsey said — 

‘‘Kegarde Medor, comme il remue la queue! 
C''est le Prince Charma/nt qui lui chatouille le hout 
du nezP 

Said my mother, who had not spoken hitherto : 
“ Do speak English, Mimsey, please.” 

Oh, my God ! My mother’s voice, so forgotten, 
yet so familiar, so unutterably dear! I rushed to 
her, and threw myself on my knees at her feet, 
and seized her hand and kissed it, crying, “ Mother, 
mother !” 

A strange blur came over everything ; the sense 
of reality was lost. All became as a dream — a 
beautiful dream — but only a dream ; and I woke. 


I woke in my small hotel bedroom, and saw all 
the furniture, and my hat and clothes, by the light 
of a lamp outside, and heard the ticking of the 


214 


PETER IBBETSON. 


clock on the mantel-piece, and the rumbling of a 
cart and cracking of a whip in the street, and yet 
felt I was not a bit more awake than I had been a 
minute ago in my strange vision — not so much ! 

I heard my watch ticking its little tick on the 



“mother, mother!” 


mantel-piece by the side of the clock, like a pony 
trotting by a big horse. The clock struck twelve. 
I got up and looked at my watch by the light of 
the gas-lit streets ; it marked the same. My dream 


PETER IBBETSON. 


215 


had lasted an hour — I had gone to bed at half-past 
ten. 

I tried to recall it all, and did so to the smallest 
particular — all except the tune the organ had played, 
and the words belonging to it ; they were on the tip 
of my tongue, and refused to come further. I got 
up again and walked about the room, and felt that 
it had not been like a dream at all; it was more 
‘‘ recollectable ” than all my real adventures of the 
previous day. It had ceased to be like a dream, 
and had become an actuality from the moment I 
first touched the duchess’s hand to the moment I 
kissed my mother’s, and the blur came. It was an 
entirely new and utterly bewildering experience 
that I had gone through. 

In a dream there are always breaks, inconsist- 
encies, lapses, incoherence, breaches of continuity, 
many links missing in the chain ; only at points is 
the impression vivid enough to stamp itself after- 
wards on the waking mind, and even then it is 
never so really vivid as the impression of real life, 
although it ought to have seemed so in the dream. 
One remembers it well on awaking, but soon it 
fades, and then it is only one’s remembrance of it 
that one remembers. 

There was nothing of this in my dream. 

It was something like the “camera-obscura” on 
Kamsgate pier : one goes in and finds one’s seK in 
total darkness; the eye is prepared; one is thor- 
oughly expectant and wide-awake. 

Suddenly there flashes on the sight the moving 


216 


PETER IBBETSON. 


picture of the port and all the life therein, and the 
houses and cliffs beyond ; and farther still the green 
hills, the white clouds, and blue sky. 

Little green waves chase each other in the har- 
bor, breaking into crisp white foam. Sea - gulls 
wheel and dash and dip behind masts and ropes 
and pulleys ; shiny brass fittings on gangway and 
compass flash in the sun without dazzling the eye ; 
gay Liliputians walk and talk, their white teeth, no 
bigger than a pin’s point, gleam in laughter, with 
never a sound; a steamboat laden with excursion- 
ists comes in, its paddles churning the water, and 
you cannot hear them. Not a detail is missed — 
not a button on a sailor’s jacket, not a hair on his 
face. All the light and color of sea and earth and 
sky, that serve for many a mile, are here concen- 
trated within a few square feet. And what color 
it is ! A painter’s despair ! It is light itself, more 
beautiful than that which streams through old 
church windows of stained glass. And all is framed 
in utter darkness, so that the fully dilated pupils 
can see their very utmost. It seems as though all 
had been painted life-size and then shrunk, like a 
Japanese picture on crape, to a millionth of its 
natural size, so as to intensify and mellow the 
effect. 

It is all over: you come out into the open sun- 
shine, and all seems garish and bare and bald and 
commonplace. All magic has faded out of the 
scene ; everything is too far away from everything 
else ; everybody one meets seems coarse and Brob' 


PETER lEBETSON. 


217 


dingnagian and too near. And one has been loot 
ing at the like of it all one’s life ! 

Thus with my dream, compared to common, wak- 
ing, every - day experience ; only instead of being 
mere flat, silent little images moving on a dozen 
square feet of Bristol -board, and appealing to the 
eye alone, the things and people in my dream had 
the same roundness and relief as in life, and were 
life-size; one could move among them and behind 
them, and feel as if one could touch and clasp and 
embrace them if one dared. And the ear, as well 
as the eye, was made free of this dark chamber of 
the brain : one heard their speech and laughter as 
in hfe. And that was not all, for soft breezes 
fanned the cheek, the sparrows twittered, the sun 
gave out its warmth, and the scent of many flowers 
made the illusion complete. 

And then the Duchess of Towers ! She had been 
not only visible and audible like the rest, but tangi- 
ble as well, to the fullest extent of the sensibility 
that lay in my nerves of touch; when my hands 
held hers I felt as though I were drawing all her 
life into mine. 

With the exception of that one figure, all had 
evidently been as it had been in reality a few years 
ago, to the very droning of an insect, to the very 
fall of a blossom ! 

Had I gone mad by any chance ? I had possessed 
the past, as I had longed to do a few hours before. 

What are sight and hearing and touch and the 
rest? 


S18 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


Five senses in all. 

The stars, worlds upon worlds, so many billions 
of miles away, what are they for us but mere shiny 
specks on a net - work of nerves behind the eye ? 
How does on^feel them there ? 

The sound of my friend’s voice, what is it ? The 
clasp of his hand, the pleasant sight of his face, the 
scent of his pipe and mine, the taste of the bread 
and cheese and beer we eat and drink together, 
what are they but figments (stray figments, per- 
haps) of the brain — little thrills through nerves 
made on purpose, and without which there would 
be no stars, no pipe, no bread and cheese and beer, 
no voice, no friend, no me ? 

And is there, perchance, some sixth sense em- 
bedded somewhere in the thickness of the flesh — 
some survival of the past, of the race, of our own 
childhood even, etiolated by disuse? or some rudi- 
ment, some effort to begin, some priceless hidden 
faculty to be developed into a future source of 
bhss and consolation for our descendants? some 
nerve that now can only be made to thrill and vi- 
brate in a dream, too delicate as yet to ply its func- 
tion in the light of common day ? 

And was I, of all people in the world — I, Peter 
Ibbetson, architect and surveyor, Wharton Street, 
Pentonville — most futile, desultory, and uneducated 
dreamer of dreams — destined to make some great 
psychical discovery ? 

Pondering deeply over these solemn things, I sent 
jnyself to sleep again, as was natural enough — but 





220 


PETER IBBETSON. 


no more to dream. I slept soundly until late in 
the morning, and breakfasted at the Bains Deligny, 
a delightful swimming-bath near the Pont de la 
Concorde (on the other side), and spent most of the 
day there, alternately swimming, and dozing, and 
smoking cigarettes, and thinking of the wonders of 
the night before, and hoping for their repetition on 
the night to follow. 

I remained a week in Paris, loafing about by*day 
among old haunts of my childhood— a melancholy 
pleasure — and at night trying to ‘‘ dream true,” as 
my dream duchess had called it. Only once did 
I succeed. 

I had gone to bed thinking most persistently of 
the “ Mare d’Auteuil,” and it seemed to me that as 
soon as 1 was fairly asleep I woke up there, and 
knew directly that I had come into a “ true dream” 
again, by the reality and the bliss. It was traU' 
scendent life once more — a very ecstasy of remem- 
brance made actual, and such an exquisite surprise ! 

There was M. le Major, in his green frock-coat, 
on his knees near a httle hawthorn - tree by the 
brink, among the water-logged roots of which there 
dwelt a cunning old dytiscus as big as the bowl of 
a table-spoon — a prize we had often tried to catch 
in vain. 

M. le Major had a net in his hand, and was 
watching the water intently ; the perspiration was 
trickling down his nose ; and around him, in silent 
expectation and suspense, were grouped Gogo and 
Mimsey and my three cousins, and a good-humored 


PETEE IBBETSOI^. 


m 

freckled Irish boy I had quite forgotten, and I sud- 
denly remembered that his name was Johnstone, 
that he was very combative, and that he lived in 
the Rue Basse (now Rue Raynouard). 

On the other side of the pond my mother was 
keeping Medor from the water, for fear of his spoil- 
ing the sport, and on the bench by the willow sat 
Madame Seraskier — lovely Madame Seraskier — 
deeply interested. I sat down by her side and 
gazed at her with a joy there is no telling. 

An old woman came by, selling conical wafer- 
cakes, and singing — ‘‘ y^la Vplaisir, mesdames — 
Ydd Vjplaisirr Madame Seraskier bought ten 
sous’ worth — a mountain ! 

M. le Major made a dash with his net — unsuccess- 
fully, as usual. Medor was let loose, and plunged 
with a plunge that made big waves all round the 
mare^ and dived after an imaginary stone, amid 
general shouts and shrieks of excitement. Oh, the 
familiar voices ! I almost wept. 

Medor came out of the water without his stone 
and shook himself, twisting and barking and grin- 
ning and gyrating, as was his way, quite close to 
me. In my delight and sympathy I was ill-advised 
enough to try and stroke him, and straight the 
dream was ‘‘blurred” — changed to an ordinary 
dream, where all things were jumbled up and in- 
comprehensible ; a dream pleasant enough, but dif- 
ferent in kind and degree — an ordinary dream ; 
and in my distress thereat I woke, and failed to 
dream again (as I wished to dream) that night. 


222 


PETER IBRETSON. 


I^ext morning (after an early swim) I went to 
the Louvre, and stood spellbound before Leonardo 
da Yinci’s ‘‘ Lisa Gioconda,” trying hard to find 
where the wondrous beauty lay that I had heard 
so extravagantly extolled ; and not trying very suc- 
cessfully, for I had seen Madame Seraskier once 
more, and felt that ‘‘ Gioconda ” was a fraud. 

Presently I was conscious of a group just behind 
me, and heard a pleasant male English voice ex- 
claim — 

“ And now, duchess, let me present you to my 
first and last and only love, Monna Lisa.” I turned 
round, and there stood a soldier-like old gentleman 
and two ladies (one of whom was the Duchess of 
Towers), staring at the picture. 

As I made way for them I caught her eye, and 
in it again, as I felt sure, a kindly look of recogni- 
tion — just for half a second. She evidently recol- 
lected having seen me at Lady Craj^’s, where I had 
stood all the evening alone in a rather conspicuous 
corner. I was so exceptionally tall (in those days 
of not such tall people as now) that it was easy to 
notice and remember me, especially as I wore my 
beard, which it was unusual to do then among Eng- 
lishmen. 

She little guessed how I remembered her / she 
little knew all she was and had been to me — in life 
and in a dream ! 

My emotion was so great that I felt it in my very 
knees; I could scarcely walk; I was as weak as 
water. My worship for the beautiful stranger was 



“lisa gioconda.” 


becoming almost a madness. She was even more 
lovely than Madame Seraskier. It was cruel to be 
like that. 

It seems that I was fated to fall down and pros- 
trate myself before very tall, slender women, with 
dark hair and lily skins and light angelic eyes. 
The fair damsel who sold tripe and pigs’ feet in 
Clerkenwell was also of that type, I remembered ; 
and so was Mrs. Deane. Fortunately for me it is 
not a common one i 


224 


PETEE IBBETSOK. 


All that day I spent on quays and bridges, lean^ 
ing over parapets, and looking at the Seine, and 
nursing my sweet despair, and calling myself the 
biggest fool in Paris, and recalling over and over 
again that gray-blue kindly glance — my only light, 
the Light of the World for me ! 


My brief holiday over, I went back to London — 
to Fenton ville — and resumed my old occupations ; 
but the whole tenor of my existence was changed. 

The day, the working-day (and I worked harder 
than ever, to Lintot’s great satisfaction), passed as 
in an unimportant dream of mild content and cheer- . 
f ul acquiescence in everything, work or play. , 

There was no more quarrelling with my destiny, 
nor wish to escape from myself for a moment. My 
whole being, as I went about on business or recrea- , 
don bent, was suffused with the memory of the 
Duchess of Towers as with a warm inner glow that 
kept me at peace with all mankind and myself, 
and thrilled by the hope, the enchanting hope, of 
once more meeting her image at night in a dream, 
in or about my old home at Passy, and perhaps 
even feeling once more that ineffable bliss of touch- 
ing her hand. Though why should she be there ? 

When the blessed hour came round for sleep, the 
real business of my life began. I practised “ dream- 
ing true ” as one practises a fine art, and after many 
failures I became a professed expert — a master. 

I lay straight on my back, with my feet crossed. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


225 


and my hands clasped above my head in a symmet- 
rical position ; I would fix my will intently and 
persistently on a certain point in space and time 
that was within my memory — for instance, the av- 
enue gate on a certain Christmas afternoon, when 
I remembered waiting for M. le Major to go for a 
walk — at the same time never losing touch of my 
own present identity as Peter Ibbetson, architect, 
"Wharton Street, Pentonville ; all of which is not so 
easy to manage as one might think, although the 
dream duchess had said, Ce n’est que le premier 
pas qui coute and finally one night, instead of 
dreaming the ordinary dreams I had dreamed all my 
life (but twice), I had the rapture of waking the 
minute I was fairly asleep, by the avenue gate, and 
of seeing Gogo Pasquier sitting on one of the stone 
posts and looking up the snowy street for the major. 
Presently he jumped up to meet his old friend, whose 
bottle-green- clad figure had just appeared in the 
distance. I saw and heard their warm and friend- 
ly greeting, and walked un perceived by their side 
through Auteuil to the mare, and back by the forti- 
fications, and listened to the thrilling adventures of 
one Fier-a-bras, which, I confess, I had completely 
forgotten. 

As we passed all three together through the 
“Porte de la Muette,” M. le Major’s powers of 
memory (or invention) began to fiag a little — for 
he suddenly said, ‘‘^CricP^ But Gogo pitilessly an- 
swered, ^^CracP^ and the story had to go on, till we 
reached at dusk the gate of the Pasquiers’ house, 
15 


226 


PETER IBBETSON. 


where these two most affectionately parted, after 
making an appointment for the morrow ; and I went 
in with Gogo, and sat in the school -room while 
Therese gave him his tea, and heard her tell him all 
that had happened in Passy that afternoon. Then 
he read and summed and translated with his mother 
till it was time to go up to bed, and I sat by his 
bedside as he was lulled asleep by his mother’s harp 
. . . how I listened with all my ears and heart, till 
the sweet strain ceased for the night ! Then out of 
the hushed house I stole, thinking unutterable things 
— through the snow-clad garden, where Medor was 
baying the moon — through the silent avenue and 
park — through the deserted streets of Passy — and 
on by desolate quays and bridges to dark quarters of 
Paris ; till I fell awake in my tracks and found that 
another dreary and commonplace day had dawned 
over London — but no longer dreary and common- 
place for me, with such experiences to look back 
and forward to — such a strange inheritance of won- 
der and delight ! 

I had a few more occasional failures, such as, for 
instance, when the thread between my waking and 
sleeping life was snapped by a moment’s careless- 
ness, or possibly by some movement of my body in 
bed, in which case the vision would suddenly get 
blurred, the reality of it destroyed, and an ordinary 
dream rise in its place. My immediate conscious- 
ness of this was enough to wake me on the spot, 
and I would begin again, da cajpo^ till all went as I 
wished. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


227 



THE STORY OP THE GIANT FIER-A-BRAS. 


Evidently our brain contains something akin both 
to a photographic plate and a phonographic cylin- 
der, and many other things of the same kind not 
yet discovered ; not a sight or a sound or a smell 
is lost ; not a taste or a feeling or an emotion. Un- 
conscious memory records them all, without our even 
heeding what goes on around us beyond the things 
that attract our immediate interest or attention. 

Thus night after night I saw reacted before me 
scenes not only fairly remembered, but scenes ut- 
terly forgotten, and yet as unmistakably true as the 



228 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


remembered ones, and all bathed in that ineffable 
light, the light of other days — the light that never 
was on sea or land, and yet the light of absolute 
truth. 

How it transcends in value as well as in beauty 
the garish light of common day, by which poor hu- 
manity has hitherto been content to live and die, 
disdaining through lack of knowledge the shadow 
for the substance, the spirit for the matter ! I veri- 
fied the truth of these sleeping experiences in every 
detail : old family letters I had preserved, and which 
I studied on awaking, confirmed what I had seen 
and heard in my dream ; old stories explained them- 
selves. It was all by-gone truth, garnered in some 
remote corner of the brain, and brought out of the 
dim past as I willed, and made actual once more. 

And strange to say, and most inexplicable, I saw 
it aU as an independent spectator, an outsider, not 
as an actor going again through scenes in which he 
has played a part before ! 

Yet many things perplexed and puzzled me. 

For instance, Gogo’s back, and the back of his 
head, when I stood behind him, were as visible and 
apparently as true to life as his face, and I had never 
seen his back or the back of his head ; it was much 
later in life that I learned the secret of two mirrors. 
And then, when Gogo went out of the room, some- 
times apparently passing through me as he did so 
and coming out at the other side (with a momen- 
tary blurring of the dream), the rest would go on 
talldng just as reasonably, as naturally, as before. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


229 


Could the trees and walls and furniture have had 
ears and eyes, those long- vanished trees and walls 
and furniture that existed now only in my sleeping 
brain, and have retained the sound and shape and 
meaning of all that passed when Gogo, my only con- 
ceivable remembrancer, was away ? 

rran§oise, the cook, would come into the drawing- 
room to discuss the dinner with my mother when 
Gogo was at school; and I would hear the orders 
given, and later 1 would assist at the eating of the 
meal (to which Gogo would invariably do ample jus- 
tice), and it was just as my mother had ordered. 
Mystery of mysteries ! 

What a pleasant life it was they led together, 
these ghosts of a by -gone time! Such a genial, 
smooth, easy-going, happy-go-lucky state of things — 
half bourgeois, half Bohemian, and yet with a well- 
marked simplicity, refinement, and distinction of 
bearing and speech that were quite aristocratic. 

The servants (only three — Therese the house-maid, 
Frangoise the cook, and English Sarah, who had 
been my nurse and was now my mother’s maid) 
were on the kindliest and most familiar terms with 
us, and talked to us like friends, and interested 
themselves in our concerns, and we in theirs ; I no- 
ticed that they always wished us each good -morn- 
ing and good-night — a pretty French fashion of the 
Passy bourgeoisie in Louis Philippe’s time (he was a 
bourgeois king). 

Our cuisine was bourgeoise also. Peter Ibbetson’s 
mouth watered (after his tenpenny London dinner) 


230 


PETER IBBETSON. 


to see and smell the steam of “ soupe a la bonne 
femme,” “ soupe aux choux,” pot au feu,” ‘‘ blan- 
quette de veau,” boeuf a la mode,” cotelettes de 
pore a la sauce piquante,” ‘‘vinaigrette de boeuf 
bouilli” — that endless variety of good things on 
which French people grow fat so young — and most 
excellent claret (at one franc a bottle in those happy 
days) : its bouquet seemed to till the room as soon 
as the cork was drawn ! 

Sometimes, such a repast ended, “le beau Pas- 
quier,” in the fulness of his heart, ^vould suddenly 
let off impossible fireworks of vocalization, ascend- 
ing rockets of chromatic notes which would explode 
softly very high up and come down in full cadences, 
trills, roulades, like beautiful colored stars; and The- 
rese would exclaim, “Ah, q’c’est beau !” as if she had 
been present at a real pyrotechnic display ; and The- 
r^se was quite right. I have never heard the like 
from any human throat, and should not have believed 
it possible. Only Joachim’s violin can do such beau- 
tiful things so beautifully. 

Or else he would tell us of wolves he had shot in 
Brittany, or wild-boars in Burgundy — for he was a 
great sportsman — or of his adventures as a garde du 
corps of Charles Dix, or of the wonderful inventions 
that were so soon to bring us fame and fortune ; and 
he would loyally drink to Henri Cinq ; and he was 
so droll and buoyant and witty that it was as good 
to hear him speak as to hear him sing. 

But there was another and a sad side to all this 
strange comedy of vanished lives. 










232 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


They built castles in the air, and made plans, and 
talked of all the wealth and happiness that would 
be theirs when my father’s ship came home, and of 
all the good they would do, pathetically unconscious 
of the near future ; which, of course, was all past 
history to their loving audience of one. 

And then my tears would flow with the unbear- 
able ache of love and pity combined ; they would 
fall and dry on the waxed floors of my old home in 
Passy, and I would find them still wet on my pillow 
in Pentonville when I woke. . . . 


Soon I discovered by practice that I was able for 
a second or two to be more than a mere spectator 
— to be an actor once more ; to turn myself (Ibbet- 
son) into my old self (Gogo), and thus be touched 
and caressed by those I had so loved. My mother 
kissed me and I felt it ; just as long as I could hold 
my breath I could walk hand in hand with Madame 
Seraskier, or feel Mimsey’s small weight on my back 
and her arms round my neck for four or five yards 
as I walked, before blurring the dream ; and the blur 
would soon pass away, if it did not wake me, and 
I was Peter Ibbetson once more, walking and sit- 
ting among them, hearing them talk and laugh, 
watching them at their meals, in their walks ; list- 
ening to my father’s songs, my mother’s sweet play- 
ing, and always unseen and unheeded by them. 
Moreover, I soon learned to touch things without 
sensibly blurring the dream. I would cull a rose. 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


233 


and stick it in my button-hole, and there it remained 
— but lo ! the very rose I had just culled was still 
on the rose-bush also ! 1 would pick up a stone and 

throw it at the wall, where it disappeared without a 
sound — and the very same stone still lay at my feet, 
however often I might pick it up and throw it ! 

IS’o waking joy in the world can give, can equal 
in intensity, these complex joys I had when asleep ; 
waking joys seem so slight, so vague in comparison 
— so much escapes the senses through lack of con- 
centration and undivided attention — the waking per- 
ceptions are so blunt. 

It was a life within a life — an intenser life — in 
which the fresh perceptions of childhood combined 
with the magic of dream-land, and in which there 
was but one unsatisfied longing ; but its name was 
Lion. 

It was the passionate longing to meet the Duchess 
of Towers once more in that land of dreams. 


Thus for a time I went on, more solitary than ever, 
but well compensated for all my loneliness by this 
strange new life that had opened itself to me, and 
never ceasing to marvel and rejoice — when one 
morning I received a note from Lady Cray, who 
wanted some stables built at Cray, their country-seat 
in Hertfordshire, and begged I would go there for 
the day and night. 

I was bound to accept this invitation, as a mere 
matter of business, of course j as a friend, Lady Cray 


234 


PETER IBBETSON. 


seemed to have dropped me long ago, “ like a ’ot po- 
tato,” blissfully unconscious that it was I who had 
dropped her. 

But she received me as a friend — an old friend. 
All my shyness and snobbery fell from me at the 
mere touch of her hand. 

I had arrived at Cray early in the afternoon, and 
had immediately set about my work, which took 
several hours, so that I got to the house only just in 
time to dress for dinner. 

When I came into the drawing-room there were 
several people there, and Lady Cray presented me 
to a young lady, the vicar’s daughter, whom I was 
to take in to dinner. 

I was very much impressed on being told by her 
that the company assembled in the drawing-room 
included no less a person than Sir Edwin Landseer. 
Many years ago I had copied an engraving of one 
of his pictures for Mimsey Seraskier. It was called 
‘‘The Challenge,” or “Coming Events cast their 
Shadows before Them.” I feasted my eyes on the 
wondrous little man, who seemed extremely chatty 
and genial, and quite unembarrassed by his fame. 

A guest was late, and Lord Cray, who seemed 
somewhat peevishly impatient for his food, ex- 
claimed — 

“ Mary wouldn’t be Mary if she were punctual !” 

Just then Mary came in — and Mary was no less 
a person than the Duchess of Towers ! 

My knees trembled under me ; but there was no 
time’ to give way to any such tender weakness, 



« 


236 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


Lord Cray walked away with her ; the procession 
filed into the dining-room, and somewhere at the 
end of it my young vicaress and myself. 

The duchess sat a long way from me, but I met 
her glance for a moment, and fancied I saw again in 
it that glimmer of kindly recognition. 

My neighbor, who was charming, asked me if I 
did not think the Duchess of Towers the most beau- 
tiful woman I had ever seen. 

I assented with right good-will, and was told that 
she was as good as she was beautiful, and as clever 
as she was good (as if I did not know it) ; that she 
would give away the very clothes off her back; 
that there was no trouble she would not take for 
others ; that she did not get on well with her hus- 
band, who drank, and was altogether bad and vile ; 
that she had a great sorrow — an only child, an idiot, 
to whom she was devoted, and who would some 
day be the Duke of Towers ; that she was highly 
accomplished, a great linguist, a great musician, 
and about the most popular woman in all English 
society. 

Ah ! who loved the Duchess of Towers better 
than this poor scribe, in whose soul she lived and 
shone like a bright particular star — like the sun; 
and who, without his knowing, was being rapidly 
drawn into the sphere of her attraction, as Lintot 
called it ; one day to be finally absorbed, I trust, for- 
ever ! 

“And who was this wonderful Duchess of Tow- 
ers before she married I asked. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


237 


She was a Miss Seraskier. Her father was a 
Hungarian, a physician, and a political reformer — 
a most charming person ; that’s where she gets her 
manners. Her mother, whom she lost when she 
was quite a child, was a very beautiful Irish girl of 
good family, a first cousin of Lord Cray’s — a Miss 
Desmond, who ran away with the interesting pa- 
triot. They lived somewhere near Paris. It was 
there that Madame Seraskier died of cholera — . . . 
What is the matter — are you ill ?” 

I made out that I was faint from the heat, and 
concealed as well as I could the fiood of emotion 
and bewilderment that overwhelmed me. 

I dared not look again at the Duchess of Towers. 

“Oh! little Mimsey dear, with your poor thin 
arms round my neck, and your cold, pale cheek 
against mine. I felt them there only last night! 
To have grown into such a splendid vision of 
female health and strength and beauty as this — 
with that enchanting, ever-ready laugh and smile! 
Why, of course, those eyes, so lashless then, so thick- 
ly fringed to-day! — how could I have mistaken 
them ? Ah, Mimsey, you never smiled or laughed 
in those days, or I should have known your eyes 
again ! Is it possible — is it possible ?” 

Thus I went on to myself till the ladies left, my 
fair young companion expressing her kind anx- 
iety and polite hope that I would soon be myself 
again. 

I sat silent till it was time to join the ladies (I 
could not even follow the witty and brilliant anec- 


PETER IBBETSON. 


dotes of the great painter, who held the table); 
and then I went up to my room. I could not face 
her again so soon after what I had heard. 

The good Lord Cray came to make kind inqui- 
ries, but I soon satisfied him that my indisposition 
was nothing. He stayed on, however, and talked ; 
his dinner seemed to have done him a great deal of 
good, and he wanted to smoke (and somebody to 
smoke with), which he had not been able to do in 
the dining-room on account of some reverend old 
bishop who was present. So he rolled himself a 
little cigarette, like a Frenchman, and puffed away 
to his heart’s content. 

He little guessed how his humble architect wished 
him away, until he began to talk of the Duchess of 
Towers — “ Mary Towers,” as he called her — and to 
tell me how Towers ” deserved to be kicked, and 
whipped at the cart’s tail. Why, she’s the best 
and most beautiful woman in England, and as 
sharp as a needle ! If it hadn’t been for her, he’d 
have been in the bankruptcy court long ago,” etc. 
“ There’s not a duchess in England that’s fit to hold 
the candle to her, either for looks or brains, or 
breedin’ either. Her mother (the loveliest woman 
that ever lived, except Mary) was a connection of 
mine ; that’s where she gets her manners !” etc. 

Thus did this noble earl make music for me — 
sweet and bitter music. 

Mary ! It is a heavenly name, especially on 
English lips, and spelled in the English mode 
with the adorable y ! Great men have had a pas- 


PETER IBBETSON. 


239 


sion for it — Byron, Shelley, Burns. But none, me- 
thinks, a greater passion than I, nor with such good 
cause. 

And yet there must be a bad Mary now and 
then, here or there, and even an ugly one. Indeed, 
there was once a Bloody Mary who was both ! It 
seems incredible ! 

Mary, indeed! Why not Hecuba? For what 
was I to the Duchess of Towers ? 

When I was alone again I went to bed, and tried 
to sleep on my back, with my arms up, in the hope 
of a true dream ; but sleep would not come, and I 



SWEET AND BITTER MUSIC. 



240 


PETER IBBETSON. 


passed a white night, as the French say. I rose 
early and walked about the park, and tried to in- 
terest myself in the stables till it was breakfast- 
time. ISTobody was up, and I breakfasted alone 
with Lady Cray, who was as kind as she could be. 
I do not think she could have found me a very 
witty companion. And then I went back to the 
stables to think, and fell into a doze. 

At about twelve I heard the sound of wooden 
balls, and found a lawn where some people were 
playing ‘‘ croquet.” It was quite a new game, and 
a few years later became the fashion. 

I sat down under a large weeping- ash close to 
the lawn ; it was like a tent, with chairs and tables 
underneath. 

Presently Lady Cray came there with the Duch- 
ess of Towers. I wanted to fly, but was rooted to 
the spot. 

Lady Cray presented me, and almost immediately 
a servant came with a message for her, and I was 
left with the One Woman in the World ! My heart 
was in my mouth, my throat , was dry, my pulse was 
beating in my temples. 

She asked me, in the most natural manner, if I 
played ‘‘ croquet.” 

“Yes — no — at least, sometimes — that is, I never 
heard of it — oh — I forget !” I groaned at my idiocy, 
and hid my face in my hands. She asked if I were 
still unwell, and I said no ; and then she began to 
talk quite easily about anything, everything, till I 
felt more at my ease. 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


241 


Her voice! I had never heard it well but in a 
dream, and it was the same — a very rich and mod- 
ulated voice — low — contralto, with many varied and 
delightful inflexions ; and she used more action in 
speaking than the generality of Englishwomen, 



THE INTRODUCTION. 


thereby reminding me of Madame Seraskier. I no 
ticed that her hands were long and very narrow, 
and also her feet, and remembered that Mimsey’s 
16 


242 


PETER IBBETSON. 


were like that — they were considered poor Mim- 
sey’s only beauty. I also noticed an almost imper- 
ceptible scar on her left temple, and remembered 
with a thrill that I had noticed it in my dream as 
we walked up the avenue together. In waking life 
I had never been near enough to her to notice a 
small scar, and Mimsey had no scar of the kind in 
the old days — of that I felt sure, for I had seen 
much of Mimsey lately. 

I grew more accustomed to the situation, and 
ventured to say that I had once met her at Lady 
Cray’s in London. 

“ Oh yes ; I remember. Giulia Grisi sang the 
‘Willow Song!’” And then she crinkled up her 
eyes, and laughed, and blushed, and went on : “I 
noticed you standing in a corner, under the famous 
Gainsborough. You reminded me of a dear little 
French boy I once knew who was very kind to me 
when I was a little girl in France, and whose father 
you happen to be like. But I found that you were 
Mr. Ibbetson, an English architect, and. Lady Cray 
tells me, a very rising one.” 

“ I was a little French boy once. I had to change 
my name to please a relative, and become English 
— that is, I was always really English, you know.” 

“ Good Heavens, what an extraordinary thing ! 
What was your name, then ?” 

“ Pasquier — Gogo Pasquier !” I groaned, and the 
tears came into my eyes, and I looked away. The 
duchess made no answer, and when I turned and 
looked at her she was looking at me, very pale, her 


PETER IBBETSON. 


S43 


lips quite white, her hands tightly clasped in her 
lap, and trembling all over. 

I said, “ You used to be little Mimsey Seraskier, 
and I used to carry you pickaback !” 

“Oh don’t! oh don’t!” she said, and began to 
cry. 

I got up and walked about under the ash-tree till 
she had dried her eyes. The croquet-players were 
intent upon their game. 

I again sat down beside her ; she had dried her 
eyes, and at length she said- -- 

“ What a dreadful thing it was about your poor 
father and mother, and my dear mother ! Do you 
remember her? She died a week after you left. 
I went to Kussia with papa — Dr. Seraskier. What 
a terrible break-up it all was !” 

And then we gradually fell to talking quite nat- 
urally about old times, and dear dead people. She 
never took her eyes off mine. After a while I 
said — 

“ I went to Passy, and found everything changed 
and built over. It nearly drove me mad to see. I 
went to St. Cloud, and saw you driving with the 
Empress of the French. That night I had such an 
extraordinary dream! I dreamed I was flounder- 
ing about the Kue de la Pompe, and had just got to 
the avenue gate, and you were there.” 

“ Good heavens !” she whispered, and turned white 
again, and trembled all over, “ what do you mean ?” 

“Yes,” I said, “you came to my rescue. I was 
pursued by gnomes and horrors.” . . . 


244 


PETER IBBETSON. 


She. Good heavens ! by — by two little jailers, a 
man and his wife, who danced and were trying to 
hem you in 

It was now my turn to ejaculate “ Good heav- 
ens!” We both shook and trembled together. 

I said : “You gave me your hand, and all came 
straight at once. My old school rose in place of 
the jail.” 

She. “ With a yellow omnibus ? And boys going 
off to iheiv premiere communion 

1. “ Yes ; and there was a crowd — le Pere et la 
Mere Frangois, and Madame Liard, the grocer’s wife, 
and — and Mimsey Seraskier, with her cropped head. 
And an organ was playing a tune I knew quite 
well, but cannot now recall.” . . . 

She. “ Wasn’t it ‘ Maman, les p’tits bateaux?’ ” 

I. “ Oh, of course ! 

“ ‘Maman, les p’tits bateaux 
Qui vont sur I’eau, 

Ont-ils des jambes ?’ ” 

She. “ That’s it 1 

“ ‘ Eh oui, petit bSta ! 

S’ils n’avaient pas 

Ils n’march’raient pas !’ ” 


She sank back in her chair, pale and prostrate. 
After a while — 

She. “And then 1 gave you good advice about 
how to dream true, and we got to my old house. 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


245 


and I tried to make you read the letters on the 
portico, and you read them wrong, and I laughed.’’ 

I, “Yes; I read ‘Tete Noire.’ Wasn’t it idi- 
otic ?” 

She. “And then I touched you again and you 
read ‘Parvis Notre Dame.’” 

I. “ Yes ! and you touched me again^ and I read 
‘ Parva sed Apta ’ — small but fit.” 

She. “Is that what it means? Why, when you 
were a boy, you told me sed ajpta was all one word, 
and was the Latin for ‘Pavilion.’ I believed it 
ever since, and thought ‘ Parva sed Apta ’ meant 
jpetit jpavillon 

I. “ I blush for my bad Latin ! After this you 
gave me good advice again, about not touching any- 
thing or picking flowers. I never have. And then 
you went away into the park — the light went out 
of my fife, sleeping or waking. I have never been 
able to dream of you since. I don’t suppose I shall 
ever meet you again after to-day !” 

After this we were silent for a long time, though 
I hummed and hawed now and then, and tried to 
speak. I was sick with the conflict of my feelings. 
At length she said — 

“ Dear Mr. Ibbetson, this is all so extraordinary 
that I must go away and think it all over. I can- 
not teU you what it has been to me to meet you 
once more. And that double dream, common to us 
both ! Oh, I am dazed beyond expression, and feel 
as if I were dreaming now — except that this all 
seems so unreal and impossible — so untrue! We 


246 


PETEE IBBETSOX. 


had better part now. I don’t know if I shall ever 
meet you again. You will be often in my thoughts, 
but never in my dreams again — that, at least, I can 
command — nor I in yours; it must not be. My 
poor father taught me how to dream before he died, 
'that I might find innocent consolation in dreams 
for my waking troubles, which are many and great, 
as his were, if I can see that any good may come 
of it, I will write — but no— you must not expect a 
letter. I will now say good-bye and leave you. 
You go to-day, do you not ? That is best. I think 
this had better be a final adieu. I cannot tell you 
of what interest you are to me and always have 
been. I thought you had died long ago. We shall 
often think of each other — that is inevitable — hut 
never ^ never dream. That will not do. 

‘‘Dear Mr. Ibbetson, I wish you all the good 
that one human being can wish another. And now 
good-bye, and may God in heaven bless you !” 

She rose, trembling and white, and her eyes wet 
with tears, and wrung both my hands, and left me 
as she had left me in the dream. 

The light went out of my life, and I was once 
more alone — more wretchedly and miserably alone 
than if I had never met her. 

I went back to Pentonville, and outwardly took 
up the thread of my monotonous existence, and ate, 
drank, and worked, and went about as usual, but as 
one in an ordinary dream. For now dreams — true 
dreams — had become the only reality for me. 

So great, so inconceivable and unexampled a won- 


PETER IBBETSON. 


247 


der had been wrought in a dream that all the condi- 
tions of life had been altered and reversed. 

I and another human being had met — actually 



A FAREWKLL. 


and really met — in a double dream, a dream com- 
mon to us both, and clasped each other’s hands ! 
And each had spoken words to the other which 
neither ever would or ever could forget. 

And this other human being and I had been en- 
shrined in each other’s memory for years — since 


9 


248 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


childhood — and were now linked together by a 
tie so marvellous, an experience so unprecedented, 
that neither could ever well be out of the other’s 
thoughts as long as life and sense and memory 
lasted. 

Her very self, as we talked to each other under 
the ash-tree at Cray, was less vividly present to me 
than that other and still dearer self of hers with 
whom I had walked up the avenue in that balmy 
dream atmosphere, where we had lived and moved 
and had our being together for a few short mo- 
ments, yet each believing the other at the time to 
be a mere figment of his own (and her) sleeping 
imagination ; such stuff as dreams are made of ! 

And lo ! it was all true — as true as the common 
experience of every-day life — more (ten times more), 
because through our keener and more exalted sense 
perceptions, and less divided attention, we were 
more conscious of each other’s real inner being — 
linked closer together for a space — than two mor- 
tals had probably ever been since the world began. 

That clasp of the hands in the dream — how in- 
finitely more it had conveyed of one to the other 
than even that sad farewell clasp at Cray ! 

In my poor outer life I waited in vain for a let- 
ter; in vain I haunted the parks and streets — the 
street where she lived— in the hope of seeing her 
once more. The house was shut ; she was away — 
in America, as I afterwards learned — with her hus- 
band and child. 

At night, in the familiar scenes I had learned so 


PETER IBBETSON. 


249 


well to conjure up, I explored every nook and cor- 
ner with the same yearning desire to find a trace 
of her. I was hardly ever away from “ Parva sed 
Apta.” There were Madame Seraskier and Mim- 
sey and the major, and my mother and Gogo, at 
all times, in and out, and of course as unconscious 
of my solid presence as though I had never existed. 
And as I looked at Mimsey and her mother I won- 
dered at my obtuseness in not recognizing at the 
very first glance who the Duchess of Towers had 
been, and whose daughter. The height, the voice, 
the eyes, certain tricks of gait and gesture — how 
could I have failed to know her again after such 
recent dream opportunities ? 

And Seraskier, towering among them all, as his 
daughter now towered among women. I saw that 
he hved again in his daughter; his was the smile 
that closed up the eyes, as hers did; had Mimsey 
ever smiled in those days, I should have known her 
again by this very characteristic trait. 

Of this daughter of his (the Mimsey of the past 
years, not the duchess of to-day) I never now could 
have enough, and made her go through again and 
again all the scenes with Gogo, so dear to my re- 
membrance, and to hers. I was, in fact, the Prince 
Charmant, of whose unseen attendance she had 
been conscious in some inconceivable way. What 
a strange foresight ! But where was the fee Tara 
patapoum? JSTever there during this year of un- 
utterable longing; she had said it; never, never 
again should I be in her dream, or she in mine, 


250 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


however constantly we might dwell in each other’s 
thoughts. 

So sped a twelvemonth after that last meeting 
in the flesh at Cray. 


And now, with an unwilling heart and most re- 
luctant pen, I must come to the great calamity of 
my life, which I will endeavor to tell in as few words 
as possible. 

The reader, if he has been good enough to read 
without skipping, will remember the handsome Mrs. 
Deane, to whom I fancied I lost my heart, in Hop- 
shire, a few years back. 

I had not seen her since — had, indeed, almost for- 
gotten her — but had heard vaguely that she had 
left Hopshire, and come to London, and married a 
wealthy man much older than herself. 

Well, one day I was in Hyde Park, gazing at the 
people in the drive, when a spick-and-span and very 
brand-new open carriage went by, and in it sat Mrs. 
Deane (that was), all alone in her glory, and looking 
very sulky indeed. She recognized me and bowed, 
and I bowed back again, with just a moment’s little 
flutter of the heart — an involuntary tribute to auld 
lang-syne — and went on my way, wondering that I 
could ever have admired her so. 

Presently, to my surprise, I was touched on the 
elbow. It was Mrs. Deane again — I will call her 
Mrs. Deane still. She had got out and followed me 
on foot. It was her wish that I should drive round 


PETER IBBETSON. 


251 


the park with her and talk of old times. I obeyed, 
and for the first and last time found myself form- 
ing part of that proud and gay procession I had so 
often watched with curious eyes. 

She seemed anxious to know whether I had ever 
made it up with Colonel Ibbetson, and pleased to 
hear that I had not, and that I probably never 
should, and that my feeling against him was strong 
and bitter and likely to last. 

She appeared to hate him very much. 

She inquired kindly after myself and my pros- 
pects in life, but did not seem deeply interested in 
my answers — until later, when I talked of my 
French life, and my dear father and mother, when 
she listened with eager sympathy, and I was much 
touched. She asked if I had portraits of them ; I 
had — most excellent miniatures ; and when we part- 
ed I had promised to call upon her next afternoon, 
and bring these miniatures with me. 

She seemed a languid woman, much ennuyee, and 
evidently without a large circle of acquaintance. 
She told me I was the only person in the whole 
park whom she had bowed to that day. Her hus- 
band was in Hamburg, and she was going to meet 
him in Paris in a day or two. 

I had not so many friends but what I felt rather 
glad than otherwise to have met her, and willingly 
called, as I had promised, with the portraits. 

She lived in a large, new house, magnificently 
upholstered, near the Marble Arch. She was quite 
aione when I called, and asked me immediately if 


253 


PETER IBBETSON. 


I had brought the miniatures ; and looked at them 
quite eagerly, and then at me, and exclaimed — 

“ Good heavens, you are your father’s very im- 
age !” 

Indeed, I had always been considered so. 

Both his eyebrows and mine, especially, met in a 
singular and characteristic fashion at the bridge of 
the nose, and she seemed much struck by this. He 
was represented in the uniform of Charles X.’s 
gardes du corjps^ in which he had served for two 
years, and had acquired the nickname of “ le beau 
Pasquier.” Mrs. Deane seemed never to tire of gaz- 
ing at it, and remarked that my father “ must have 
been the very ideal of a young girl’s dream ” (an in- 
direct compliment which made me blush after what 
she had just said of the likeness between us. I al- 
most began to wonder whether she was going to try 
and make a fool of me again, as she had so success- 
fully done a few years ago). 

Then she became interested again in my early life 
and recollections, and wanted to know whether my 
parents were fond of each other. They were a 
most devoted and lover -like pair, and had loved 
each other at first sight and until death, and I told 
her so ; and so on until I became quite excited, and 
imagined she must know of some good fortune to 
which I was entitled, and had been kept out of by 
the machinations of a wicked uncle. 

For I had long discovered in my dreams that he 
had been my father’s bitterest enemy and the main 
pause of his financial ruin, bjr selfish, heartless, and 


PETER IBBETSON. 


253 


dishonest deeds too complicated to explain here — a 
regular Shy lock. 

I had found this out by listening (in my dreams) 
to long conversations between my father and moth- 
er in the old drawing-room at Passy, while Gogo 
was absorbed in his book ; and every word that had 
passed though Gogo’s inattentive ears into his oth- 
erwise preoccupied little brain had been recorded 
there as in a phonograph, and was now repeated 
over and over again for Peter Ibbetson, as he sat 
unnoticed among them. 

I asked her, jokingly, if she had discovered that 
I was the rightful heir to Ibbetson Hall by any 
chance. 

She replied that nothing would give her greater 
pleasure, but there was no such good fortune in store 
for either her or me ; that she had discovered long 
ago that Colonel Ibbetson was the greatest black- 
guard unhung, and nothing new she might discover 
could make him w'orse. 

I then remembered how he would often speak of 
her, even to me, and hint and insinuate things which 
were no doubt untrue, and which I disbelieved. 
Hot that the question of their truth or untruth 
made him any the less despicable and vile for 
telling. 

She asked me if he had ever spoken of her to 
me, and after much persuasion and cunning cross- 
examination I told her as much of the truth as I 
dared, and she became a tigress. She assured me 
that he had managed so to injure and compromise 


254 


PETER IBBETSON. 


her in Hopshire that she and her mother had to 
leave, and she swore to me most solemnly (and I 
thoroughly believe she spoke the truth) that there 
had never been any relation between them that she 
could not have owned to before the whole world. 

She had wished to marry him, it is true, for his 
wealth and position ; for both she and her mother 
were very poor, and often hard put to it to make 
both ends meet and keep up a decent appearance 
before the world ; and he had singled her out and 
paid her marked attention from the first, and given 
her every reason to believe that his attentions were 
serious and honorable. 

At this juncture her mother came in, Mrs. Glyn, 
and we renewed our old acquaintance. She had 
quite forgiven me my school-boy admiration for her 
daughter ; all her power of hating, like her daugh- 
ter’s, had concentrated itself on Ibbetson ; and as I 
listened to the long story of their wrongs and his 
infamy, I grew to hate him worse than ever, and 
was ready to be their champion on the spot, and 
to take up their quarrel there and then. 

But this would not do, it appeared, for their name 
must nevermore be in any way mixed up with his. 

Then suddenly Mrs. Glyn asked me if I knew 
when he went to India. 

I could satisfy her, for I knew that it was just 
after my parents’ marriage, nearly a year before my 
birth ; upon which she gave the exact date of his 
departure with his regiment, and the name of the 
transport, and everything ; and also, to my surprise, 


PETER IBBETSOIT. 


255 


the date of my parents’ marriage at Marylebone 
Church, and of my baptism there fifteen months 
later — just fourteen weeks after my birth in Pas- 
sy. I was growing quite bewildered with all this 
knowledge of my affairs, and wondered more and 
more. 

We sat silent for a while, the two women looking 
at each other and at me and at the miniatures. It 
was getting grewsome. What could it all mean ? 

Presently Mrs. Glyn, at a nod from her daughter, 
addressed me thus : 

“ Mr. Ibbetson, your uncle, as you call him, though 
he is not your uncle, is a very terrible villain, and 
has done you and your parents a very foul wrong. 
Before I tell you what it is (and I think you ought 
to know) you must give me your word of honor 
that you will do or say nothing that will get our 
name publicly mixed up in any way with Colonel 
Ibbetson’s. The injury to my daughter, now she 
is happily married to an excellent man, vrould be 
irreparable.” 

With a beating heart I solemnly gave the required 
assurance. 

“ Then, Mr. Ibbetson, it is right that you should 
know that Colonel Ibbetson, when he was paying 
his infamous addresses to my daughter, gave her 
unmistakably to understand that you were his nat- 
ural son, by his cousin. Miss Catherine Biddulph, 
afterwards Madame Pasquier de la Mariere !” 

Oh, oh, oh !” I cried, “ surely you must be mis- 
taken — he knew it was impossible— he had been re- 


m 


PETER IBBETSON. 


fused by my mother three times — he went to India 
nearly a year before I was born — he — ’’ 

Then Mrs. Deane said, producing an old letter 
from her pocket : 

“Do you know his handwriting and his crest? 
Do you happen to recollect once bringing me a note 
from him at Ibbetson Hall ? Here it is,” and she 
handed it to me. It was unmistakably his, and I 
remembered it at once, and this is what it said : 

“For Heaven’s sake, dear friend, don’t breathe a 
word to any living soul of what you were clever 
enough to guess last night ! There is a likeness, of 
course. 

“Poor Antinoiis! He is quite ignorant of the 
true relationship, which has caused me many a pang 
of shame and remorse. . . . 

“‘Que voulez-vous? File etait ravissante!’ . . . 
We were cousins, much thrown together; ‘both 
were so young, and one so beautiful !’...! was but 
a penniless cornet in those days — hardly more than 
a boy. Happily an unsuspecting Frenchman of 
good family was there who had loved her long, and 
she married him. ‘ ll etait temps . 

“ Can you forgive me this ‘ entrainement de jeu- 
nesse V I have repented in sackcloth and ashes, and 
made what reparation I could by adopting and giv- 
ing my name to one who is a perpetual reminder 
to me of a moment’s infatuation. He little knows, 
poor boy, and never will, I hope. ‘II n’a plus que 
moi au monde !’ 



THE FATAL LETTER, 


“ Burn this as soon as you have read it, and never 
let the subject be mentioned between us again. 

K. (‘ Qui sait aimer 

Here was a thunderbolt out of the blue ! 

I sat stunned and saw scarlet, and felt as if I 
should see scarlet forever. 

After a long silence, during which I could feel 
my pulse beat to bursting-point in my temples, Mrs. 
Glyn said :* 

How, Mr. Ibbetson, I hope you will do nothing 
17 


258 


PETER IBBETSON. 


rash — nothing that can bring my daughter’s name 
into any quarrel between yourself and your uncle. 
For the sake of your mother’s good name, you will 
be prudent, I know. If he could speak like this of 
his cousin, with whom he had been in love when he 
was young, what lies would he not tell of my poor 
daughter? He has — terrible lies! Oh, what we 
have suffered 1 When he wrote that letter I believe 
he really meant to marry her. He had the greatest 
trust in her, or he would never have committed 
himself so foolishly.” 

“ Does he know of this letter’s existing ?” I asked. 

“Ho. When he and my daughter quarrelled she 
sent him back his letters — all but this one, which 
she told him she had burned immediately after read- 
ing it, as he had told her to do.” 

“ May I keep it ?” 

“Yes. I know you may be trusted, and my 
daughter’s name has been removed from the outside, 
as you see. Ho one but ourselves has ever seen it, 
nor have we mentioned to a soul what it contains, 
as we never believed it for a moment. Two or 
three years ago we had the curiosity to find out 
when and where your parents had married, and 
when you were born, and when he went to India. 
It was no surprise to us at all. We then tried to 
find you^ but soon gave it up, and thought it bet- 
ter to leave matters alone. Then we heard he was 
in mischief again— just the same sort of mischief ; 
and then my daughter saw you in the park, and we 
concluded you ought to know.” 


PETER IBBETSOK, 


250 


Such was the gist of that memorable conversation, 
which I have condensed as much as I could. 

When I left these two ladies I walked twice rap- 
idly round the park. I saw scarlet often during 
that walk. Perhaps I looked scarlet. I remember 
people staring at me. 

Then I went straight to LintoPs, with the impulse 
to tell him my trouble and ask his advice. 

He was away from home, and I waited in his 
smoking-room for a while, reading the letter over 
and over again. 

Then I decided not to tell him, and left the house, 
taking with me as I did so (but without any definite 
purpose) a heavy loaded stick, a most formidable 
weapon, even in the hands of a boy, and which I 
myself had given to Lintot on his last birthday. 
’ Av ay KT ) ! 

Then I went to my usual eating-house near the 
circus and dined. To the surprise of the waiting- 
maid, I drank a quart of bitter ale and two glasses 
of sherry. It was my custom to drink water. She 
plied me with questions as to whether I was ill or in 
trouble. I answered her no, and at last begged she 
would leave me alone. 

Ibbetson lived in St. James’s Street. I went there. 
He was out. It was nine o’clock, and his servant 
seemed uncertain when he would return. I came 
back at ten. He was not yet home, and the serv- 
ant, after thinking a while, and looking up and down 
the street, and finding my appearance decent and 
by no means dangerous, asked me to go up-stairs 


260 


PETER IBBETSON. 


and wait, as I told him it was a matter of great 
importance. 

So I went and sat in my uncle’s drawing-room 
and waited. 

The servant came with me and lit the candles, 
and remarked on the weather, and handed me the 
Saturday Review and Punch. I must have looked 
quite natural — as I tried to look — and he left me. 

I saw a Malay creese on the mantel-piece and hid 
it behind a picture-frame. I locked a door leading 
to another drawing-room where there was a grand 
piano, and above it a trophy of swords, daggers, 
battle-axes, etc., and put the key in my pocket. 

The key of the room where I waited was inside 
the door. 

All this time I had a vague idea of possible vio- 
lence on his part, but no idea of killing him. I felt 
far too strong for that. Indeed, I had a feeling of 
quiet, irresistible strength — the result of suppressed 
excitement. 

I sat down and meditated all I would say. I had 
settled it over and over again, and read and reread 
the fatal letter. 

The servant came up with glasses and soda-water. 
I trembled lest he should observe that the door to 
the other room was locked, but he did not. He 
opened the window and looked up and down the 
street. Presently he said, “Here’s the colonel at 
last, sir,” and went down to open the door. 

I heard him come in and speak to his servant. 
Then he came straight up, humming “ la donna e 


PETER IBBETSON. 


mobile^'^ and walked in with just the jaunty, airy 
manner I remembered. He was in evening dress, 
and very little changed. He seemed much surprised 
to see me, and turned very white. 

‘‘Well, my Apollo of the T square, paurquoi cet 
honneurf Have you come, like a dutiful nephew, 
to humble yourself and beg for forgiveness 

I forgot all I meant to say (indeed, nothing hap- 
pened as I had meant), but rose and said, “ I have 
come to have a talk with you,’’ as quietly as I could, 
though with a thick voice. 

He seemed uneasy, and went towards the door. 

I got there before him, and closed it, and locked 
it, and put the key in my pocket. 

He darted to the other door and found it locked. 

Then he went to the mantel-piece and looked for 
the creese, and not finding it, he turned round with 
his back to the fireplace and his arms akimbo, and 
tried to look very contemptuous and determined. 
His chin was quite white under his dyed mustache 
— like wax — and his eyes blinked nervously. 

I walked up to him and said: “You told Mrs. 
Deane that I was your natural son.” 

“ It’s a lie ! Who told you so ?” 

“ She did — this afternoon.” 

“It’s a lie — a spiteful invention of a cast-off 
mistress !” 

“ She never was your mistress !” 

“You fool! I suppose she told you that too. 
Leave the room, you pitiful green jackass, or I’ll 
have you turned out,” and he rang the bell. 


262 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


“ Do you know your own handwriting I said, 
and handed him the letter. 

He read a line or two and gasped out that it was 
a forgery, and rang the bell again, and looked again 
behind the clock for his creese. Then he lit the let- 
ter at a candle and threAV it in the fireplace, where 
it blazed out. 

I made no attempt to prevent him. 

The servant tried to open the door, and Ibbetson 
went to the window and called out for the police. I 
rushed to the picture where I had hidden the creese, 
and threw it on the table. Then I swung him away 
from the window by his coat-tails, and told him to 
defend himself, pointing to the creese. 



bastard! parricide!’ 


PETER IBBETSON. 


268 


He seized it, and stood on the defensive ; the serv- 
ant had apparently run down-stairs for assistance. 

‘‘ How, then,” I said, ‘‘ down on your knees, you 
infamous cur, and confess ; it’s your only chance.” 

‘‘ Confess what, you fool ?” 

“ That you’re a coward and a liar ; that you wrote 
that letter ; that Mrs. Deane was no more your mis- 
tress than my mother was !” 

There was a sound of people running up-stairs. 
He listened a moment and hissed out : 

“ They 'both were, you idiot ! How can I tell for 
certain whether you are my son or not ? It all 
comes to the same. Of course I wrote the letter. 
Come on, you cowardly assassin, you bastard parri- 
cide !” . . . and he advanced on me with his creese 
low down in his right hand, the point upward, and 
made a thrust, shrieking out, Break open the door ! 
quick !” They did ; but too late I 

I saw crimson ! 

He missed me, and I brought down my stick on 
his left arm, which he held over his head, and then 
on his head, and he fell, crying : 

O my God ! O Christ !” 

I struck him again on his head as he was falling, 
and once again when he was on the ground. It 
seemed to crash right in. 

That is why and how I killed Uncle Ibbetson. 


264 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


Ipact 3Fiftb* 



|ROUILLE, gr^ve, gr^ve, grouille, 
File, file, ma quenouille ! 

File sa corde au bourreau 
Qui siffle dans le preau. ...” 


So sang the old hag in Notre Dame de Paris ! 

So sang to me night and day, for many nights 
and days, the thin small voice that always went 
piping inside me, now to one tune, now to another, 
but always the same words — that terrible refrain 
that used to haunt me so when I was a school-boy 
at Bluefriars ! 


PETER IBBETSON. 


265 


Oh, to be a school-boy again in a long gray coat 
and ridiculous pink stockings — innocent and free — 
with Esmeralda for my only love, and Athos and 
Porthos and D’Artagnan for my bosom friends, and 
no worse tribulation than to be told on a Satur- 
day afternoon that the third volume was in hand — 
volume trois en lecture ! 

Sometimes, I remember, I could hardly” sleep on 
a Sunday night, for pity of the poor wretch who 
was to be hanged close by on the Monday morning, 
and it has come to that with me ! 

Oh, Mary, Mary, Duchess of Towers, sweet friend 
of my childhood, and love of my life, what must 
you think of me now ? 

How blessed are the fafthful ! How good it must 
be to trust in God and heaven, and the forgiveness 
of sin, and be as a little child in all but innocence ! 

A whole career of crime wiped out in a moment 
by just one cheap little mental act of faith at the 
eleventh hour, in the extreme terror of well-merited 
dissolution ; and all the evil one has worked through 
life (that goes on breeding evil for ages to come) 
taken off one’s shoulders like a filthy garment, and 
just cast aside, anywhere, anyhow, for the infecting 
of others — who do not count. 

What matter if it be a fool’s paradise ? Paradise v 
is paradise, for whoever owns it ! 


266 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


They say a Sicilian drum-major, during the French 
occupation of Palermo, was sentenced to be shot. 

He was a well-known coward, and it was feared he 
would disgrace his country at the last moment in 
the presence of the French soldiers, who had a way 
of being shot with a good grace and a light heart : 
they had grown accustomed to it. 

For the honor of Sicily his confessor told him, 
in the strictest confidence, that his sentence was a 
mock one, and that he would be fired at with blank 
cartridges. 

It was a pious fraud. All but two of the twelve 
cartridges had bullets, and he fell, riddled through 
and through. Ho Frenchman ever died with a 
lighter heart, a better grace. He was superb, and 
the national honor was saved. 

Thrice happy Sicilian drum-major, if the story be 
true ! That trust in blank cartridges was his paradise. 

Oh, it is uphill work to be a stoic when the mo- 
ment comes and the tug ! But when the tug lasts 
for more than a moment — days and nights, days 
and nights ! Oh, happy Sicilian drum-major ! 

Pray ? Yes, I will pray night and morning, and 
all day long, to whatever there is left of inherited 
strength and courage in that luckless, misbegotten 
waif, Peter Ibbetson ; that it may bear him up a ^ 
little while yet ; that he may not disgrace himself 
in the dock or on the gallows. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


267 


Eepent? Yes, of many things. But of the thing 
for which I am here ? Never ! 

It is a ghastly thing to be judge and jury and 
executioner all in one, and for a private and personal 
wrong — to condemn and strike and kill. 

Pity comes after — when it is too late, fortunately 
— the wretched weakness of pity! Pooh! no Cal- 
craft will ever pity m^, and I do not want him to. 

He had his long, snaky knife against my stick; 
he, too, was a big strong man, well skilled in self- 
defence ! Down he went, and I struck him again 
and again. “ O my God ! O Christ !” he shrieked 

“ It will ring in my heart and my ears till I die — 
till I die !” 

There was no time to lose — no time to think for 
the best. It is all for the best as it is. What might 
he not have said if he had lived ! 

Thank Heaven, pity is not remorse or shame ; and 
what crime could well be worse than his ? To rob 
one’s dearly beloved dead of their fair fame ! 

He might have been mad, perhaps, and have 
grown in time to believe the lies he told himself. 
Such things have been. But such a madman should 
no more be suffered to live than a mad dog. The 
only way to kill the lie was to kiU the liar — that is, 
if one can ever kill a lie ! 


268 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


Poor worm ! after all, he could not help it, I sup- 
pose ! he was huilt like that ! and I was built to kill 
him for it, and be hanged. 'AvdyKij ! 

What an exit for “ Gogo — gentil petit Gogo !” 

Just opposite that wall, on the other side, was* 
once a small tripe and trotter shop, kept by a most 
lovely daughter of the people, so fair and good in 
my eyes that I would have asked her to be my wife. 
What would she think of me now ? That I should 
have dared to aspire ! What a King Cophetua ! 

What does everybody think ? I can never breathe 
the real cause to a soul. Only two women know 
the truth, and they will take good care not to tell. 
Thank Heaven for that ! 

What matters what anybody thinks ? “ It will be 
all the same a hundred years hence.” That is the 
most sensible proverb ever invented. 

But meanwhile ! 

The judge puts on the black cap, and it is all for 
you ! Every eye is fixed on you, so big and young 
and strong and full of life ! IJgh ! 

They pinion you, and you have to walk and be a 
man, and the chaplain exhorts and prays and tries ^ 
to comfort. Then a sea of faces ; people opposite, 
who have been eating and drinking and making 


PETER IBBETSON. 


269 


merry, waiting for you ! A cap is pulled over your 
eyes — oh, horror ! horror ! horror ! 

“ Heureux tambour-major de Sicile !” 

“ II faut laver son linge sale en famille, et c’est ce 
que j’ai fait. Mais §a va me couter cher !” 

Would I do it all over again? Oh, let me hope, 
yes! 

Ah, he died too quick; I dealt him those four 
blows in less than as many seconds. It was five 
minutes, perhaps — or, at the most, ten — from the 
moment he came into -the room to that when I fin- 
ished him and was caught red-handed. And I — 
what a long agony ! 

Oh, that I might once more dream a “ true dream,’^ 
and see my dear people once more ! But it seems 
that I have lost the power of dreaming true since 
that fatal night. I try and try, but it will not come. 
My dreams are dreadful ; and, oh, the waking ! 

After all, my life hitherto, but for a few happy 
years of childhood, has not been worth living ; it is 
most unlikely that it ever would have been, had I 
lived to a hundred 1 Oh, Mary ! Mary ! 

And penal servitude! Better any death than 
that. It is good that my secret must die with me — 


270 


PETER IBBETSON. 


that there will be no extenuating circumstances, no 
recommendation to mercy, no commutation of the 
swift penalty of death. 

“File, file . . . 

File sa corde au bourreau!” 


By such monotonous thoughts, and others as 
dreary and hopeless, recurring again and again in 
the same dull round, I beguiled the terrible time 
that intervened between Ibbetson’s death and my 
trial at the Old Bailey. 

It all seems very trivial and unimportant now — 
not worth recording — even hard to remember. 

But at the time my misery was so great, my ter- 
ror of the gallows so poignant, that each day I 
thought I must die of sheer grief before another 
twenty-four hours could possibly pass over me. 

The intolerable strain would grow more and more 
severe till a climax of tension was reached, and a 
hysterical burst of tears would relieve me for a 
while, and I would feel reconciled to my fate, and 
able to face death like a man. . . . Then the anguish 
would gradually steal over me again, and the uncon- 
trollable weakness of the flesh. . . . 

And each of these two opposite moods, while it f 
lasted, made the other seem impossible, and as if it 
never could come back again ; yet back it came with 
the regularity of a tide — the most harrowing seesaw 
that ever was. 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


271 


I had always been unstable like that ; but whereas 
I bad hitherto oscillated between high elation and 
despondency, it was now from a dumb, resigned de- 
spair to the wildest agony and terror. 

I sought in vain for the only comfort it was in 
me to seek ; but when, overdone with suffering, I 
fell asleep at last, I could no longer dream true ; I 
could dream only as other wretches dream. 

I always dreamed those two little dancing, de- 
formed jailers, man and wife, had got me at last ; 
and that I shrieked aloud for my beloved duchess to 
succor me, as they ran me in, each butting at me side- 
ways, and showing their toothless gums in a black 
smile, and poisoning me with their hot sour breath ! 
The gate was there, and the avenue, all distorted 
and quite unlike ; and, opposite, a jail ; but no pow- 
erful Duchess of Towers to wave the horror away. 


It will be remembered by some, perhaps, how 
short was my trial. 

The plea of “not guilty” was entered for me. 
The defence set up was insanity, based on the ab- 
sence of any adequate motive. This defence was 
soon disposed of by the prosecution; witnesses to 
my sanity were not wanting, and motives enough 
were found in my past relations with Colonel Ibbet- 
son to “ make me— a violent, morose, and vindictive- 
natured man — imbrue my hands in the gore of my 
relative and benefactor — a man old enough to be 
my father — who, indeed, might have been my 


273 


PETER IBBETSON. 


father, for the love he had bestowed upon me, with 
his honored name, when I was left a penniless, for- 
eign orphan on his hands.” 

Here I laughed loud and long, and made a most 
painful impression, as is duly recorded in the reports 
of the trial. 

The jury found me guilty quite early in the after- 
noon of the second day, without leaving the box ; 
and I, ‘‘ preserving to the last the callous and un- 
moved demeanor I had borne all through the trial,” 
was duly sentenced to death without any hope of 
merc}^ but with an expression of regret on the part 
of the judge — a famous hanging judge — that a man 
of my education and promise should be brought by 
his own evil nature and uncontrollable passions to 
so deplorable an end. 


How whether the worst of certainties is better 
than suspense — whether my nerves of pain had been 
so exercised during the period preceding my trial 
that I had really become callous, as they say a man’s 
back does after a certain number of strokes from 
the ‘‘ cat ” — certain it was that I knew the worst, 
and acquiesced in it with a surprised sense of actual 
relief, and found it in me to feel it not unbearable. 

Such, at least, was my mood that night. I made 
the most of it. It was almost happiness by com- 
parison with what I had gone through. I remem- 
ber eating with a heartiness that surprised me. I 
could have gone straight from my dinner to the 


PETER IBBETSON. 


273 


gallows, and died with a light heart and a good 
grace — like a Sicilian drum-major. 

I resolved to write the whole true story to the 
Duchess of Towers, with an avowal of my long and 
hopeless adoration for her, and the expression of a 
hope that she would try to think of me only as her 
old playfellow, and as 
she had known me be- 
fore this terrible dis- 
aster. And thinking 
of the letter I would 
write till very late, I 
fell asleep in my cell, 
with two warders to 
watch over me; and 
then — Another phase ^ 
of my inner life began. 

Without effort, with- 
out let or hinderance 
of any kind, I was at 
the avenue gate. 

The pink and white 
may, the lilacs and laburnums were in full bloom, 
the sun made golden paths everywhere. The warm 
air was full of fragrance, and alive with all the buzz 
and chirp of early summer. 

I was half crying with joy to reach the land of 
my true dreams again, to feel at home once more — 
chez moi ! chez rrioi ! 

La Mere Fran9ois sat peeling potatoes at the door 
18 



274 


PETER IBBETSON. 


of her loge; she was singing a little song about cing 
sous, cinq sous, pour monter noire menage. I had 
forgotten it, but it all came back now. 

The facetious postman, Yverdon, went in at the 
gate of my old garden ; the bell rang as he pushed 
it, and I followed him. 

Under the apple-tree, which was putting forth 
shoots of blossom in profusion, sat my mother and 
father and Monsieur le Major. My mother took 
the letter from the postman’s hand as he said, 
“ Pour vous % Oh yes, Madame Pasquier, God sev 
ze Kveen!” and paid the postage. It was from 
Colonel Ibbetson, then in Ireland, and not yet a 
colonel. 

Medor lay snoring on the grass, and Gogo and 
Mimsey were looking at the pictures in the musee 
des families. • 

In a garden chair lolled Dr. Seraskier, apparently 
asleep, with his long porcelain pipe across his knees. 

Madame Seraskier, in a yellow nankeen gown 
with gigot sleeves, was cutting curl-papers out of 
the Constitutionnel. 

I gazed on them all with unutterable tenderness. 
I was gazing on them perhaps for the last time. 

I called out to them by name. 

‘‘ Oh, speak to me, beloved shades ! Oh, my fa- 
ther ! oh, mother, I want you so desperately ! Come 
out of the past for a few seconds, and give me some 
words of comfort ! I’m in such woful plight ! If 
you could only Icnow. ...” 

But they could neither hear nor see me. 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


276 


Then suddenly another figure stepped forth from 
behind the apple-tree — no old-fashioned, unsubstan- 
tial shadow of by-gone days that one can only see 
and hear, and that cannot hear and see one back 
again; but one in all the splendid fulness of life, 
a pillar of help and strength — Mary, Duchess of 
Towers ! 

I fell on my knees as she came to me with both 
hands extended. 

“ Oh, Mr. Ibbetson, I have been seeking and wait- 
ing for you here night after night ! I have been 
frantic! If you hadn’t come at last, I must have 
thrown everything to the winds, and gone to see 
you in Newgate, waking and before the world, to 
have a talk with you — an ahhoccamento. I suppose 
you couldn’t sleep, or were unable to dream.” 

I could not answer at first. I could only cover 
her hands with kisses, as I felt her warm life-current 
mixing with mine — a rapture ! 

And then I said — 

“ I swear to you by all I hold most sacred — by 
my mother’s memory and yours — by yourself — that 
I never meant to take Ibbetson’s life, or even strike 
him ; the miserable blow was dealt. . . 

‘^As if you need tell me that! As if I didn’t 
know you of old, my poor friend, kindest and gen- 
tlest of men ! Why, I am holding your hands, and 
see into the very depths of your heart !” 

(I put down all she said as she said it. Of course 
I am not, and never have been, what her old affec- 
tionate regard made me seem in her eyes, any more 


276 


PETER IBBETSON. 


than I am the bloodthirsty monster I passed for. 
Woman-like, she was the slave of her predilections.) 

And now, Mr. Ibbetson,’’ she went on, let me 
first of all tell you, for a certainty, that the sentence 
will be commuted. I saw the Home Secretary three 
or four hours ago. The real cause of your deplora- 
ble quarrel with your uncle is an open secret. His 
character is well known. A Mrs. Gregory (whom 
you knew in Hopshire as Mrs. Deane) has been with 
the Home Secretary this afternoon. Your chival- 
rous reticence at the trial. . . 

‘‘ Oh,” I interrupted, “ I don’t care to live any 
longer! Now that I have met you once more, and 
that you have forgiven me and think well of me in 
spite of everything, I am ready to die. There has 
never been anybody but you in the world for me — 
never a ghost of a woman, never even a friend since 
my mother died and yours. Between that time and 
the night I first saw you at Lady Cray’s concert, I 
can scarcely be said to have lived at all. I fed on 
scraps of remembrance. You see I have no talent 
for making new friends, but oh, such a genius for 
fidelity to old ones ! I was waiting for Mimsey to 
come back again, I suppose, the one survivor to me 
of that sweet time, and when she came at last I was 
too stupid to recognize her. She suddenly blazed 
and dazzled into my poor life like a meteor, and 
filled it with a maddening love and pain. I don’t 
know which of the two has been the sweetest ; both 
have been my life. You cannot realize what it has 
been. Trust me, I have lived my fill. I am ready 






278 


PETER IBBETSON. 


and willing to die. It is the only perfect consum- 
mation I can think of. Nothing can ever equal 
this moment — nothing on earth or in heaven. And 
if I were free to-morrow, life would not be worth 
having without you. I would not take it as a gift.’’ 

She sat down by me on the grass with her hands 
clasped across her knees, close to the unconscious 
shadows of our kith and kin, within hearing of their 
happy talk and laughter. 

Suddenly we both heard Mimsey say to Gogo — 

‘‘O, ils sont joliment bien ensemble, le Prince 
Charmant et la fee Tarapatapoum !” 

We looked at each other and actually laughed 
aloud. The duchess said — 

“Was there ever, since the world began, such a 
mise en scene^ and for such a meeting, Mr. Ibbetson ? 
Think of it ! Conceive it ! I arranged it all. I 
chose a day when they were all together. As they 
would say in America, I am the boss of this partic- 
ular dream.” 

And she laughed again, through her tears, that 
enchanting ripple of a laugh that closed her eyes 
and made her so irresistible. 

“Was there ever,” said I — “ever since the world 
began, such ecstasy as I feel now ? After this what 
can there be for me but death — well earned and 
well paid for? Welcome and lovely death !” 

“ You have not yet thought, Mr. Ibbetson — you 
have not realized what life may have in store for 
you if — if all you have said about your affection 
for me is true. Oh, it is too terrible for me to 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


279 


think of, I know, that you, scarcely more than a 
boy, should have to spend the rest of your life in 
miserable confinement and unprofitable monotonous 
toil. But there is another side to that picture. 

“ IS'ow listen to your old friend’s story — poor lit- 
tle Mimsey’s confession. I will make it as short as 
I can. 

“Do you remember when you first saw me, a 
sickly, plain, sad little girl, at the avenue gate, 
twenty years ago ? 

“Le Fere Francois was killing a fowl — cutting 
its throat with a clasp-knife — and the poor thing 
struggled frantically in his grasp as its blood flowed 
into the gutter. A group of boys were looking on 
in great glee, and all the while Fere Francois was ' 
gossiping with M. le Cure, who didn’t seem to mind 
in the least. I was fainting with pity and horror. 
Suddenly you came out of the school opposite with 
Alfred and Charlie Flunket, and saw it all, and in a 
fit of noble rage you called Fere Francois a ‘ sacred 
pig of assassin ’ — which, as you know, is very rude 
in French — and struck him as near his face as you 
could reach. 

“ Have you forgotten that ? Ah, I haven’t ! It 
was not an effectual deed, perhaps, and certainly 
came too late to save the fowl. Besides, F^re Fran- 
cois struck you back again, and left some of the 
fowl’s blood on your cheek. It was a baptism! 
You became on the spot my hero — my angel of 
light. Look at Giogo over there. Is he beautiful 
enough ? That was you^ Mr. Ibbetson. 


280 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


“ M. le Cure said something about ‘ ces Anglais ’ 
who go mad if a man whips his horse, and yet pay 
people to box each other to death. Don’t you real- 
ly remember ? Oh, the recollection to me! 

“ And that little language we invented and used 
to talk so fluently ! Don’t you rappel it to your- 
self ? ‘ JSTe le recolleetes tu pas V as we would have 

said in those days, for it used to be thee and thou 
with us then, 

‘‘Well, at all events, you must remember how 
for five happy years we were so often together; 
how you drew for me, read to me, played with me ; 
took my part in everything, right or wrong ; car- 
ried me pickaback when I was tired. Your draw- 
ings — I have them all. And oh ! you were so fun- 
ny sometimes ! How you used to make mamma 
laugh, and M. le Major! Just look at Gogo again. 
Have you forgotten what he is doing now? I 
haven’t. . . . He has just changed the musee des 
families for the Penny Magazine^ and is explain- 
ing Hogarth’s pictures of the ‘ Idle and Industrious 
Apprentices’ to Mimsey, and they are both agreed 
that the idle one is much the less objectionable of 
the two I 

“Mimsey looks passive enough, with her thumb 
in her mouth, doesn’t she ? Her little heart is so 
full of gratitude and love for Gogo that she can’t 
speak. She can only suck her thumb. Poor, sick, 
ungainly child ! She would like to be Gogo’s slave 
— she would die for Gogo. And her mother adores 
Gogo too; she is almost jealous of dear Madame 


PETER IBBETSON. 


281 


Pasquier for having so sweet a son. In just one 
minute from now, when she has cut that last curl- 
paper, poor long-dead mamma will call Gogo to her 
and give him a good ‘ Irish hug,’ and make him 
happy for a week. Wait a minute and see. There! 
What did I tell you ? 

“Well, all that came to an end. Madame Pas- 
quier went away and never came back, and so did 
Gogo. Monsieur and Madame Pasquier were dead, 
and dear mamma died in a week from the cholera. 
Poor heart-broken Mimsey was taken away to St. 
Petersburg, Warsaw, Leipsic, Venice, all over Eu- 
rope, by her father, as heart-broken as herself. 

“ It was her wish and her father’s that she should 
become a pianist by profession, and she studied hard 
for many years , in almost every capital, and under 
almost every master in Europe, and she gave prom- 
ise of success. 

“And so, wandering from one place to another, 
she became a young woman — a greatly petted and 
spoiled and made-much-of young woman, Mr. Ibbet- 
son, although she says it who shouldn’t ; and had 
many suitors of all kinds and countries. 

“ But the heroic and angelic Gogo, with his love- 
ly straight nose, and his hair aux enfants T Ed- 
ouard, and his dear little white silk chimney-pot 
hat and Eton jacket, was always enshrined in her 
memory, in her inmost heart, as the incarnation of all 
that was beautiful and brave and good. But alas ! 
what had become of this Gogo in the mean time ? 
Ah, he w^as never even heard of — he was dead ! 


382 


PETER IBBETSON. 


“ Wei], this long-legged, tender-hearted, grown-up 
young Mimsey of nineteen was attracted by a very 
witty and accomplished English attache at Vienna 
— a Mr. Harcourt, who seemed deeply in love with 
her, and wished her to be his wife. 

“He was not rich, but Dr. Seraskier liked and 
trusted him so much that he dispossessed himself of 
almost everything he had to enable this young 
couple to marry — and they did. And truth compels 
me to admit that for a year they were very happy 
and contented with fate and each other. 

“ Then a great misfortune befell them both. In 
a most unexpected manner, through four or five 
consecutive deaths in Mr. Harcourt’s family, he be- 
came, first. Lord Harcourt, and then the Duke of 
Towers. And since then, Mr. Ibbetson, I have not 
had an hour’s peace or happiness. 

“ In the first place a son was born to me — a crip- 
ple, poor dear ! and deformed from his birth ; and 
as he grew older it soon became evident that he was 
also born without a mind. 

“Then my unfortunate husband changed com- 
pletely ; he drank and gambled and worse, till we 
came to live together as strangers, and only spoke 
to each other in public and before the world. . . .” 

“Ah,” I said, “ you were stiU a great lady — an 
English duchess !” 

I could not endure the thought of that happy 
twelvemonth with that bestial duke ! I, sober, 
chaste, and clean — of all but blood, alas! — and a 
condemned convict ! 


PETER IBBETSON. 


283 


“ Oh, Mr. Ibbetson, you must make no mistake 
about me! I was never intended by nature for a 
duchess— especially an English one. Not but what, 
if dukes and duchesses are necessary, the English 
are the best — and, of course, by dukes and duchesses 
I mean all that upper - ten - thousand in England 
which calls itself ‘society’ — as if there were no 
other worth speaking of. Some of them are almost 
angelic, but they are not for outsiders like me. Per- 
petual hunting and shooting and fishing and horse- 
racing — eating, drinking, and killing, and making 
love — eternal court gossip and tittle-tattle — the 
Prince — the Queen — whom and what the Queen 
likes, whom and what she doesn’t ! — tame English 
party politics — the Church — a Church that doesn’t 
know its own mind, in spite of its deans, bishops, 
archbishops, and their wives and daughters — and all 
their silly, solemn sense of social rank and dignity ! 
Endless small-talk, dinners, and drums, and no socie- 
ty from year’s end to year’s end but each other! 
Ah, one must be caught young, and put in harness 
early, to lead such an existence as that and be con- 
tent ! And I had met and known such men and 
women with my father ! They were something to 
know 1 

“ There is another society in London and else- 
where — a freemasonry of intellect and culture and 
hard work — la haute boheme du talent — men and 
women whose names are or ought to be household 
words all over the world; many of them are good 
friends of mine, both here and abroad ; and that so- 


284 


PETER IBBETSON. 


ciety, which was good enough for my father and • 
mother, is quite good enough for me. 

“ I am a republican, Mr. Ibbetson — a cosmopolite 
—a born Bohemian ! 

“‘Mon grand-p^re etait rossiguol; 

Ma grand-mSrc etait- hirondelle !’ 

‘‘Look at my dear people there — look at your 
dear people! What waifs and strays, until their 
ship comes home, which we know it ilever will 1 
Our fathers forever racking their five wits in the 
pursuit of an idea ! Our mothers forever racking 
theirs to save money and make both ends meet ! . . . 
Why, Mr. Ibbetson, you are nearer to the rossignol 
than I am. Do you remember your father’s voice ? 
Shall I ever forget it! He sang to me only last 
night, and in the midst of my harrowing anxiety 
about you I was beguiled into listening outside the 
window. He sang Kossini’s ^Cujus Animam.'’ He 
was the nightingale; that was his vocation, if he 
could but have known it. And you are my brother 
Bohemian ; that is yours ! . . . Ah, my vocation ! It 
was to be the wife of some busy brain-worker — man 
of science — conspirator — writer — artist — architect, 
if you like ; to fence him round and shield him from 
all the little worries and troubles and petty vexa- 
tions of life. I am a woman of business par excel- 
lence — a manager, and all that. He would have had 
a warm, well-ordered little nest to come home to 
after hunting his idea ! 

“ Well, I thought myself the most unhappy worn- 


4 








286 


PETER IBBETSON. 


an alive, and wrapped myself up in my affection for 
my much-afflicted little son ; and as I held him to 
my breast, and vainly tried to warm and mesmerize 
him into feeling and intelligence, Gogo came back 
into my heart, and I was forever thinking, ‘ Oh, if I 
had a son like Gogo what a happy woman I should 
be !’ and pitied Madame Pasquier for dying and leav- 
ing him so soon, for I had just begun to dream true, 
and had seen Gogo and his sweet mother once again. 

And then one night — one never-to-be-forgotten 
night — I went to Lady Cray’s concert, and saw you 
standing in a corner by yourself ; and I thought, 
with a leap of my heart, ‘ Why, that must be Gogo, 
grown dark, and with a beard and mustache like a 
Frenchman !’ But alas, I found that you were only 
a Mr. Ibbetson, Lady Cray’s architect, whom she 
had asked to her house because he was ‘ quite the 
handsomest young man she had ever seen !’ 

‘‘ You needn’t laugh. You looked very nice, I as- 
sure you ! 

“ Well, Mr. Ibbetson, although you were not Gogo, 
you became suddenly so interesting to me that I 
never forgot you — you were never quite out of my 
mind. I wanted to counsel and advise you, and take 
you by the hand, and be an elder sister to you, for 
I felt myself already older than you in the world 
and its ways. I wanted to be twenty years older 
still, and to have you for my son. I don’t know 
what I wanted ! You seemed so lonely, and fresh, 
and unspotted from the world, among all those 
smart worldlings, and yet so big and strong and 


PETER IBBETSOl^. 


2S1 


square and invincible — oh, so strong ! And then you 
looked at me with such sincere and sweet and chiv- 
alrous admiration and sympathy — there, I cannot 
speak of it — and then you Avere so like Avhat Gogo 
might have become ! Oh, you made as warm and 
devoted a friend of me at first sight as any one 
might desire ! 

‘‘ And at the same time you made me feel so self- 
conscious and shy that I dared not ask to be intro- 
duced to you — I, who scarcely know what shyness is. 

“Dear Giulia Grisi sang ^ Seduf al Pie P urO 
Salice^ and that tune has always been associated in 
my mind with your image ever since, and always 
will be. Your dear mother used to play it on the 
harp. Do you remember ? 

“ Then came that extraordinary dream, which you 
remember as well as I do : wasnH it a wonder? You 
see, my dear father had learned a strange secret of 
the brain — how in sleep to recall past things and 
people and places as they had once been seen or 
known by him — even unremembered things. He 
called it ^dreaming true,’ and by long practice, he 
told me, he had brought the art of doing this to 
perfection. It Avas the one consolation of his 
troubled life to go over and over again in sleep all 
his happy youth and childhood, and the feAV short 
years he had spent with his beloved young wife. 
And before he died, Avhen he saw I had become so 
unhappy that life seemed to have no longer any pos- 
sible hope of pleasure for me, he taught me his very 
simple secret. 


m 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Thus have I revisited in sleep every place I have 
ever lived in, and especially this, the beloved spot 
where I first as a little girl knew you ! 

‘‘ That night when we met again in our common 
dream I was looking at the boys from Saindou’s 
school going to their jpre7uiere communion^ and 
thinking very much of you, as I had seen you, when 
awake, a few hours before, looking out of the win- 
dow at the ‘Tete Noire;’ when you suddenly ap- 
peared in great seeming trouble and walking like a 
tipsy man; and my vision was disturbed by the 
shadow of a prison — alas ! alas ! — and two little jail- 
ers jingling their keys and trying to hem you in. 

My emotion at seeing you again so soon was so 
great that I nearly woke. But I rescued you from 
your imaginary terrors and held you by the hand. 
You remember all the rest. 

“ I could not understand why you should be in 
my dream, as I had almost always dreamed true — 
that is, about things that had been in my life — not 
about things that might be ; nor could I account for 
the solidity of your hand, nor understand why you 
didn’t fade away when I took it, and blur the dream. 
It was a most perplexing mystery that troubled 
many hours of both my waking and sleeping life. 
Then came that meeting with you at Cray, and part 
of the mystery was accounted for, for you were my 
old friend Gogo, after all. But it is still a mystery, 
an awful mystery, that two people should meet as 
we are meeting now in one and the same dream — 
should dovetail so accurately into each other’s brains. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


289 


What a link between us two, Mr. Ibbetson, already 
linked by such memories ! 

“ After meeting you at Cray I felt that I must 
never meet you again, either waking or dreaming. 
The discovery that you were Gogo, after all, com- 
bined with the preoccupation which as a mere stran- 
ger you had alread}^ caused me for so long, created 
such a disturbance in my spirit that — that — there, 
you must try and imagine it for yourself. 

“ Even before that revelation at Cray I had often 
known you were here in my dream, and I had care- 
fully avoided you . . . though little dreaming you 
were here in your own dream too ! Often from that 
little dormer-window up there I have seen you wan- 
dering about the park and avenue in seeming search 
of me^ and wondered why and how you came. You 
drove me into attics and servants’ bedrooms to con- 
ceal myself from you. It was quite a game of hide- 
and-seek — cache-cache^ as we used to call it. 

“ But after our meeting at Cray I felt there must 
be no more cache-cache; I avoided coming here at 
all ; you drove me away altogether. 

“ Now try to imagine what I felt when the news 
of your terrible quarrel with Mr. Ibbetson burst 
upon the world. I was beside myself ! I came here 
night after night ; I looked for you everywhere — in 
the park, in the Bois de Boulogne, at the Mare d’Au- 
teuil, at St. Cloud — in every place I could think of ! 
And now here you are at last — at last ! 

“ Hush ! Don’t speak yet ! I have soon done ! 

Six months ago I lost my poor little son, and, 
19 


S90 


PETER IBBETSON. 


much as I loved him, I caunot wish him back again. 
In a fortnight I shall be legally separated from my 
wretched husband — I shall be quite alone in the 
world ! And then, Mr. Ibbetson — oh, ihen^ dearest 
friend that child or woman ever had — every hour 
that I can steal from my waking existence shall 
henceforward be devoted to you as long as both of 
us live, and sleep the same hours out of the twenty- 
four. My one object and endeavor shall be to make 
up for the wreck of your sweet and valuable young 
life. ‘ Stone walls shall not a prison make, nor iron 
bars a cage!’ [And here she laughed and cried to- 
gether, so that her eyes, closing up, squeezed out 
her tears, and I thought, “ Oh, that I might drink 
them !”] 

“ And now I will leave you. I am a weak and 
loving woman, and must not stay by your side till I 
can do so without too much self-reproach. 

‘‘ And indeed I feel I shall soon fall awake from 
sheer exhaustion of joy. Oh, selfish and jealous 
wretch that I am, to talk of joy ! 

“I cannot help rejoicing that no other woman 
can be to you what I hope to be. No other woman 
can ever come near you 1 I am your tyrant and 
your slave — your calamity has made you mine for- 
ever; but all my life — ^all — all — shall be spent in 
trying to make you forget yours, and I think I shall 
succeed.” 

“Oh, don’t make such dreadful haste!” I ex- 
claimed. “ Am / dreaming true ? What is to prove 
all this to me when I wake ? Either I am the most 


PETER IBBETSON. 


291 


abject and wretched of men, or life will never have 
another unhappy moment. How am I to hnow f ” 

“ Listen. Do you remember ^ Parva sed Apta, le 
petit pavilion,’ as you used to call it ? That is still 
my home when I am here. It shall be yours, if you 
like, when the time comes. You will find much to 
interest you there. Well, to-morrow early, in your 
cell, you will receive from me an envelope with a 
slip of paper in it, containing some violets, and the 
words ‘Parva sed Apta — a bientot ’ written in violet 
ink. Will that convince you?” 

“ Oh yes, yes !” 

“ Well, then, give me your hands, dearest and best 
— both hands ! I shall soon be here again, by this 
apple-tree ; I shall count the hours. Good-bye !” and 
she was gone, and I woke. 

I woke to the gaslit darkness of my cell. It was just 
before dawn. One of the warders asked me civilly 
if I wanted anything, and gave me a drink of water. 

I thanked him quietly, and recalled what had just 
happened to me, with a wonder, an ecstasy, for 
which I can find no words. 

Ho, it had not been a dream — of that I felt quite 
sure — not in any one single respect ; there had been 
nothing of the dream about it except its transcen- 
dent, ineffable enchantment. 

Every inflexion of that beloved voice, with its 
scarcely perceptible foreign accent that I had never 
noticed before; every animated gesture, with its 
subtle reminiscence of both her father and her 


292 


PETER IBBETSOK. 


motlier; her black dress trimmed with gray; her 
black and gray hat; the scent of sandal- wood about 
her — all were more distinctly and vividly impressed 
upon me than if she had just been actually, and in 
the flesh, at my bedside. Her tones still rang in my 
ears. My eyes were full of her : now her profile, 
so pure and chiselled ; now her full face, with her 
gray eyes (sometimes tender and grave and wet 
with tears, sometimes half closed in laughter) fixed 
on mine; her lithe sweet body curved forward, as 
she sat and clasped her knees ; her arched and slen- 
der smooth straight feet so delicately shod, that 
seemed now and then to beat time to her story. . . . 

And then that strange sense of the transfusion of 
life at the touching of the hands ! Oh, it was no 
dream ! Though what it was I cannot tell. . . . 

I turned on my side, happy beyond expression, 
and fell asleep again — a dreamless sleep that lasted 
till I was woke and told to dress. 

Some breakfast was brought to me, and with it an 
envelope^ open^ which contained some violets^ and a 
slip of paper ^ scented with sandal-wood^ on which were 
written^ in violet imk^ the words — 

Farm sed Apia — d hientot! 

Tarapatapoum'^ 

I will pass over the time that elapsed between my 
sentence and its commutation ; the ministrations and 
exhortations of the good chaplain; the kind and 
touching farewells of Mr. and Mrs. Lintot, who had 
also believed that I was Ibbetson’s son (I undeceived 


PETER IBBETSON. 


293 


them) ; the visit of my old friend Mrs. Deane . . . and 
her strange passion of gratitude and admiration. 



“my kyes were full of her.” 


I have no doubt it would all be interesting enough, 
if properly remembered and ably told. But it was 
all too much like a dream — anybody’s dream — not 
one of mine — all too slight and flimsy to have left 
an abiding remembrance, or to matter much. 

In due time I was removed to the jail at , and 

bade farewell to the world, and adapted myself to 


294 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


the conditions of my new outer life with a good 
grace and with a very light heart. 

The prison routine, leaving the brain so free and 
unoccupied; the healthy labor, the pure air, the 
plain, wholesome food were delightful to me — a 
much-needed daily mental rest after the tumultuous 
emotions of each night. 

For I was soon back again in Passy, where I spent 
every hour of my sleep, you may be sure, never very 
far from the old apple-tree, which went through all 
its changes, from bare bough to tender shoots and 
blossoms, from blossom to ripe fruit, from fruit to 
yellow falling leaf, and then to bare boughs again, 
and all in a few peaceful nights, which were my 
days. I flatter myself by this time that I know 
the habits of a French apple-tree, and its cater- 
pillars ! 

And all the dear people I loved, and of whom I 
could never tire, were about — all but one. The One ! 

At last she arrived. The garden door was pushed, 
the bell rang, and she came across the lawn, radiant 
and tall and swift, and opened wide her arms. And 
there, with our little world around us — all that we 
had ever loved and cared for, but quite unseen and 
unheard by them — for the first time in my life since 
my mother and Madame Seraskier had died I held 
a woman in my arms, and she pressed her lips to 
mine. 

Pound and round the lawn we walked and talked, 
as we had often done fifteen, sixteen, twenty years 
ago. There were many things to say. “ The Charm^ 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


295 


ing Prince and the ‘‘ Fair}^ Tarapatapoum were 
‘‘ prettily well together ” — at last ! 

The time sped quickly — far too quickly. I said — 
“You told me I should see your house — ‘Parva 
sed Apta’ — that I should find much to interest me 
there.” . . . 

She blushed a little and smiled, and said — 

“You mustn’t expect too much,” and we soon 



AT LAST SHE ARRIYEp.’ 



296 


PETER IBBETSON. 


found ourselves walking thither up the avenue. 
Thus we had often walked as children, and once — 
a memorable once — besides. 

There stood the little white house with its golden 
legend, as I had seen it a thousand times when a 
boy — a hundred since. 

How sweet and small it looked in the mellow sun- 
shine ! AYe mounted the stone perron, and opened 
the door and entered. My heart beat violently. 

Everything was as it had always been, as far as I 
could see. Dr, Seraskier sat in a chair by the win- 
dow reading Schiller, and took no notice of us. His 
hair moved in the gentle breeze. Overhead we heard 
the rooms being swept and the beds made. 

I followed her into a little lumber-room, where I 
did not remember to have been before ; it was full 
of odds and ends. 

AYhy have you brought me here I asked. 

She laughed and said — 

Open the door in the wall opposite.” 

There was no door, and I said so. 

Then she took my hand, and lo ! there was a door! 
And she pushed, and we entered another suite of 
apartments that never could have been there before ; 
there had never been room for them — nor ever could 
have been — in all Passy 1 

“ Come,” she said, laughing and blushing at once ; 
for she seemed nervous and excited and shy — “ do 
you remember — 

“ ‘And Neuha led her Torquil by the hand, 

And waved along the vault her flaming brand I’ 


PETER IBBETSON. 


297 


—do you remember your little drawing out of The 
Island^ in the green morocco Byron ? Here it is, in 
the top drawer of this beautiful cabinet. Here are 
all the drawings you ever did for me— plain and col- 
ored with dates, explanations, etc., all written by 
myself — V album de la fee Tarajpatajpoum. They are 



‘and neuha led her tokquil by the hand.’ 


only duplicates. I have the real ones at my house 
in Hampshire. 

The cabinet also is a duplicate ; — isn’t it a beauty ? 



298 


PETER IBBETSON. 


— it’s from the Czar’s Winter Palace. Everything 
here is a duplicate, more or less. See, this is a lit- 
tle dining-room ; — did you ever see anything so per- 
fect? — it is the famous salle d manger of Princesse 
de Chevagne. I never use it, except now and then 
to eat a slice of English household bread with 
French butter and ‘cassonade.’ Little Mimsey, out 
there, does so sometimes, when Gogo brings her one, 
and it makes big Mimsey’s mouth water to see her, 
so she has to go and do likewise. Would you like 
a slice ? 

You see the cloth is spread, deux converts . There 
is a bottle of famous champagne from Mr. De Poths- 
child’s ; there’s plenty more where that came from. 
The flowers are from Chatsworth, and this is a lob- 
ster salad for you. Papa was great at lobster salads 
and taught me. I mixed it myself a fortnight ago, 
and, as you see, it is as fresh and sweet as if I had 
only just made it, and the flowers haven’t faded a bit. 

Here are cigarettes and pipes and cigars. I hope 
they are good. I don’t smoke myself. 

“ Isn’t all the furniture rare and beautiful ? I have 
robbed every palace in Europe of its very best, and 
yet the owners are not a penny the worse. You 
should see up-stairs. 

Look at those pictures — the very pick of Eaphael 
and Titian and Yelasquez. Look at that piano — I 
have heard Liszt play upon it over and over again, 
in Leipsic ! 

Here is my library. Every book I ever read is 
there, and every binding I ever admired, I don’t 


PETER IBBETSON. 


299 


often read them, but I dust them carefully. I’ve 
arranged that dust shall fall on them in the usual 
way to make it real, and remind one of the outer 
life one is so glad to leave. All has to be taken 
very seriously here, and one must put one’s self to a 
little trouble. See, here is my father’s microscope, 
and under it a small spider caught on the premises 
by myself. It is still alive. It seems cruel, doesn’t 
it ? but it only exists in our brains. 

“Look at the dress I’ve got on — feel it; how 
every detail is worked out. And you have uncon- 
sciously done the same : that’s the suit you wore 
that morning at Cray under the ash-tree — the nicest 
suit I ever saw. Here is a spot of ink on your 
sleeve as real as can be (bravo !). And this button 
is coming off — quite right; I will sew it on with 
a dream needle, and dream thread, and a dream 
thimble ! 

“ This little door leads to every picture-galler}^ in 
Europe. It took me a long time to build and ar- 
range them all by myself — quite a week of nights. 
It is very pleasant to walk there with a good cata- 
logue, and make it rain cats and dogs outside. 

“ Through this curtain is an opera-box — the most 
comfortable one I’ve ever been in ; it does for thea- 
tres as well, and oratorios and concerts and scien- 
tific lectures. You shall see from it every perform- 
ance I’ve ever been at, in half a dozen languages ; 
you shall hold my hand and understand them all. 
Every singer that I ever heard, you shall hear. 
Dear Giulia Grisi shall sing the ‘Willow Song’ 


300 


PETER IBBETSON. 


again and again, and you shall hear the applause. 
Ah, what applause ! 

“ Come into this little room — my favorite ; out of 
this window and down these steps we can walk or 
drive to any place you or I have ever been to, and 
other places besides. I^’othing is far, and we have 
only to go hand in hand. I don’t know yet where 
my stables and coach-houses are ; you must help me 
to find out. But so far I have never lacked a car- 
riage at the bottom of those steps when I wanted 
to drive, nor a steam-launch, nor a gondola, nor a 
lovely place to go to. 

Out of this window, from this divan, we can sit 
and gaze on whatever we like. What shall it be? 
Just now, you perceive, there is a wild and turbu- 
lent sea, with not a ship in sight. Do you hear the 
waves tumbling and splashing, and see the alba- 
tross ? I had been reading Keats’s ‘ Ode to the 
Nightingale,’ and was so fascinated by the idea of 
a lattice opening on the foam 

“ ‘Of perilous seas by faery lands forlorn’ 

that I thought it would be nice to have a lattice 
like that myself. I tried to evolve that sea from 
my inner consciousness, you know, or rather from 
seas that I have sailed over. Do you like it? It 
was done a fortnight ago, and the waves have been 
tumbling about ever since. How they roar! and 
hark at the wind ! I couldn’t manage the ‘ faery 
lands.’ It wants one lattice for the sea, and one 


PETER IBBETSON. 


301 


for the land, I’m afraid. You must help me. Mean- 
while, what would you like there to-night — the Yo- 
semite Yalley? the IS’evski Prospect in the winter, 
with the sledges ? the Kialto ? the Bay of Naples 
after sunset, with Vesuvius in eruption . . 

— “ Oh Mary — Mimsey — what do I care for Vesu- 
vius, and sunsets, and the Bay of Naples . . . just 
now f . . , Vesuvius is in my heart !” 


Thus began for us both a period of twenty-five 
years, during which we passed eight or nine hours 
out of the twenty-four in each other’s company — 
except on a few rare occasions, when illness or some 
other cause prevented one of us from sleeping at the 
proper time. 

Mary ! Mary ! 

I idolized her while she lived ; I idolize her mem- 
ory. 

For her sake all women are sacred to me, even 
the lowest and most depraved and God - forsaken. 
They always found a helping friend in her. 

How can I pay a fitting tribute to one so near to 
me — nearer than any woman can ever have been to 
any man ? 

I know her mind as I know my own ! No two 
human souls can ever have interpenetrated each 
other as ours have done, or we should have heard 
of it. Every thought she ever had from her child- 
hood to her death has been revealed — every thought 
of mine ! Living as we did, it was inevitable. The 


PETER IBBETSON’. 


8G2 

touch of a finger was enough to establish the strange 
circuit, and wake a common consciousness of past 
and present, either hers or mine. 

And oh, how thankful am I that some lucky 
chance has preserved me, murderer and convict as 
I am, from anything she would have found it im- 
possible to condone ! 

I try not to think that shyness and poverty, un- 
gainliness and social imbecility combined, have had 
as much to do as self-restraint and self-respect in 
keeping me out of so many pitfalls that have been 
fatal to so many men better and more gifted than 
myself. 

I try to think that her extraordinary affection, 
the chance result of a persistent impression received 
in childhood, has followed me through life without 
my knowing it, and in some occult, mysterious way 
has kept me from thoughts and deeds that would 
have rendered me unworthy, even in her too indul- 
gent eyes. 

Who knows but that her sweet mother’s farewell 
kiss and blessing, and the tender tears she shed over 
me when I bade her good-bye at the avenue gate so 
many years ago, may have had an antiseptic charm ? 
Mary ! I have followed her from her sickly, suffer- 
ing childhood to her girlhood — from her half-ripe, 
gracefully lanky girlhood to the day of her retire- 
ment from the world of which she was so great an 
ornament. From girl to woman it seems like a tri- 
umphal procession through all the courts of Europe 
— scenes the like of which I have never even dreamed 


PETER IBBETSON. 


303 


— flattery and strife to have turned the head of any 
princess ! And she was the simple daughter of a 
working scientist and physician — the granddaugh- 
ter of a fiddler. . 

Yet even Austrian court etiquette was waived in 
favor of the child of plain Dr. Seraskier. 

What men have I seen at her feet — how splendid, 
handsome, gallant, brilliant, chivalrous, lordly, and 
gay ! And to al],from her, the same happy genial- 
ity — the same kindly, laughing, frolicsome, innocent 
gayety, with never a thought of self. 

M. le Major was right — “elle avait toutes les in- 
telligences de la tete et du coeur.” And old and 
young, the best and the worst, seemed to love and 
respect her alike — and women as well as men — for 
her perfect sincerity, her sweet reasonableness. 

And all this time I was plodding at my dull 
drawing-board in Pentonville, carrying out anoth- 
er’s designs for a stable or a pauper’s cottage, and 
not even achieving that poor task particularly well ! 

It would have driven me mad with humiliation 
and jealousy to see this past life of hers, but we saw 
it all hand in hand together — the magical circuit was 
established ! And I knew, as I saw, how it all affect- 
ed her, and marvelled at her simplicity in thinking 
all this pomp and splendor of so little consequence. 

And I trembled to find that what space in her 
heart was not filled by the remembrance of her 
ever -beloved mother and the image of her father 
(one of the noblest and best of men) enshrined 
the ridiculous figure of a small boy in a white 


304 


PETER IBBETSON. 


silk hat and an Eton jacket. And that small boy 
was I ! 

Then came a dreadful twelvemonth that I was 
fain to leave a blank — the twelvemonth during 
which her girlish fancy for her husband lasted — 
and then her life was mine again forever ! 

And my life ! 

The life of a convict is not, as a rule, a happy one ; 
his bed is not generally thought a bed of roses. 

Mine was ! 

If I had been the most miserable leper that ever 
crawled to his wattled hut in Molokai, I should also 
have been the happiest of men, could sleep but have 
found me there, and could I but sleeping have been 
the friend of sleeping Mary Seraskier. She would 
have loved me all the more ! 

She has filled my long life of bondage with such 
felicity as no monarch has ever dreamed, and has 
found her own felicity in doing so. That poor, plod- 
ding existence I led before my great misadventure, 
and have tried to describe — she has witnessed al- 
most every hour of it with passionate interest and 
sympathy, as we went hand in hand together through 
each other’s past. She would at any time have been 
only too glad to share it, leaving her own. 

I dreaded the effect of such a sordid revelation 
upon one who had lived so brilliantly and at such 
an altitude. I need have had no fear ! Just as she 
thought me an “ angelic hero ” at eight years old, 
she remained persuaded all through her life that I 
was an Apollo — a misunderstood genius — a martyr ! 


PETER IBBETSON. 


305 


I am sick with shame when I think of it. But I 
am not the first unworthy mortal on whom blind, 
undiscriminating love has chosen to lavish its most 
priceless treasures. Tarapatapoum is not the only 
fairy who has idealized a hulking clown with an ass’s 
head into a Prince Charming ; the spectacle, alas ! 
is not infrequent. But at least I have been humbly 
thankful for the undeserved blessing, and known its 
value. And, moreover, I think I may lay claim to 
one talent : that of also knowing by intuition when 
and where and how to love— in a moment — in a flash 
— and forever ! 

Twenty-five years ! 

It seems like a thousand, so much have we seen 
and felt and done in that busy enchanted quarter of 
a century. And yet how quickly the time has sped ! 

And now I must endeavor to give some account 
of our wonderful inner life — d deux — a delicate and 
difficult task. 

There is both an impertinence and a lack of taste 
in any man’s laying bare to the public eye — to any 
eye — the bliss that has come to him through the love 
of a devoted woman, with whose life his own has 
been bound up. 

The most sympathetic reader is apt to be repelled 
by such a revelation — to be sceptical of the beauties 
and virtues and mental gifts of one he has never 
seen ; at all events, to feel that they are no concern 
of his, and ought to be the subject of a sacred reti- 
cence on the part of her too fortunate lover or 
husband. 

30 


306 


PETER IBBETSON. 


The lack of such reticence has marred the interest 
of many an autobiography — of many a novel, even ; 
and in private life, who does not know by painful 
experience how embarrassing to the listener such 
tender confidences can sometimes be? I will try 
my best not to transgress in this particular. If I 
fail (I may have failed already), I can only plead 
that the circumstances are quite exceptional and not 
to be matched ; and that allowances must be made 
for the deep gratitude I owe and feel over and above 
even my passionate admiration and love. 

For the next three years of my life has nothing to 
show but the alternation of such honeymooning as 
never was before with a dull but contented prison 
life, not one hour of which is worth recording, or 
even remembering, except as a foil to its alternative. 

It had but one hour for me, the bed hour, and fort- 
unately that was an early one. 

Healthily tired in body, blissfully expectant in 
mind, I would lie on my back, with my hands duly 
crossed under my head, and sleep would soon steal 
over me like balm ; and before I had forgotten who 
and what and where I really was, I would reach the 
goal on which my will was intent, and waking up, 
find my body in another place, in another garb, on 
a couch by an enchanted window, still with my arms 
crossed behind my head — in the sacramental atti- 
tude. 

Then would I stretch my limbs and slip myself 
free of my outer life, as a new-born butterfiy from 
the durance of its self-spun cocoon, with an unutter- 


PETER IBBETSOK. 


807 


able sense of youth and strength and freshness and 
felicity ; and opening my eyes I would see on the 
adjacent couch the form of Mary, also supine, but 
motionless and inanimate as a statue. IS'othing could 
wake her to life till the time came : her hours were 
somewhat later, and she was still in the toils of the 
outer life I had just left behind me. 

And these toils, in her case, were more compli- 
cated than in mine. Although she had given up the 
world, she had many friends and an immense cor- 
respondence. And then, being a woman endowed 
with boundless health and energy, splendid buoy- 
ancy of animal spirits, and a great capacity for busi- 
ness, she had made for herself many cares and oc- 
cupations. 

She was the virtual mistress of a home for fallen 
women, a reformatory for juvenile thieves, and a 
children’s convalescent hospital— to all of which she 
gave her immediate personal superintendence, and 
almost every penny she had. She had let her house 
in Hampshire, and lived with a couple of female 
servants in a small furnished house on Campden 
Hill. She did without a carriage, and went about 
in cabs and omnibuses, dressed like a daily gover- 
ness, though nobody could appear more regally 
magnificent than she did when we were together. 

She still kept her name and title, as a potent 
weapon of influence on behalf of her charities, and 
wielded it mercilessly in her constant raid on the 
purse of the benevolent Philistine, who is fond of 
great people. 


308 


PETER IBBETSON. 


All of which gave rise to much comment that did 
not affect her equanimity in the least. 

She also attended lectures, committees, boards, 
and councils ; opened bazaars and soup kitchens and 
coffee taverns, etc. The list of her self-imposed 
tasks was endless. Thus her outer life was filled to 
overflowing, and, unlike mine, every hour of it was 
worth record — as I well know, who have witnessed 
it all. But this is not the place in which to write 
the outer life of the Duchess of Towers ; another 
hand has done that, as everybody knows. 

Every page henceforv^ard must be sacred to Mary 
Seraskier, the ‘‘ fee Tarapatapoum ” of ‘‘ Magna sed 
Apta” (for so we had called the new home and 
palace of art she had added on to ‘‘Parva sed 
Apta,” the home of her childhood). 

To return thither, where we left her lying uncon- 
scious. Soon the color would come back to her 
cheeks, the breath to her nostrils, the pulse to her 
heart, and she would wake to her Eden, as she called 
it — our common inner life — that we might spend it 
in each other’s company for the next eight hours. 

Pending this happy moment, I would make coffee 
(such coffee !), and smoke a cigarette or two ; and 
to fully appreciate the bliss of that one must be an 
habitual smoker who lives his real life in an Enerlish 
jail. 

When she awoke from her sixteen hours’ busy 
trance in the outer world, such a choice of pleasures 
lay before us as no other mortal has ever known. 
She had been all her life a great traveller, and had 






310 


PETER IBBETSON. 


dwelt in many lands and cities, and seen more of 
life and the world and nature than most people. I 
had but to take her hand, and one of us had but to 
wish, and, lo ! wherever either of us had been, what- 
ever either of us had seen or heard or felt, or even 
eaten or drunk, there it was all over again to choose 
from, with the other to share in it — such a hyp- 
notism of ourselves and each other as was never 
dreamed of before. 

Everything -was as life-like, as real to us both, as 
it had been to either at the actual time of its occur- 
rence, with an added freshness and charm that never 
belonged to mortal existence. It was no dream ; it 
was a second life, a better land. 

We had, however, to stay within certain bounds, 
and beware of transgressing certain laws that we 
discovered for ourselves, but could not quite account 
for. For instance, it was fatal to attempt exploits 
that were outside of our real experience : to fly, or 
to jump from a height, or do any of those non-nat- 
ural things that make the charm and wonder of or- 
dinary dreams. If we did so our true dream was 
blurred, and became as an ordinary dream — vague, 
futile, unreal, and untrue — the baseless fabric of a 
vision. Hor must we alter ourselves in any way ; 
even to the shape of a flnger-nail, we must remain 
ourselves ; although we kept ourselves at our very 
best, and could choose what age we should be. We 
chose from twenty-six to twenty-eight, and stuck 
to it. 

Yet there were many things, quite as impossible 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


311 


in real life, that we could do with impunity — most 
delightful things ! 

For instance, after the waking cup of coffee, it 
was certainly delightful to spend a couple of hours 
in the Yosemite Yalley, leisurely strolling about and 
gazing at the giant pines — a never-palling source of 
delight to both of us — breathing the fragrant fresh 
air, looking at our fellow-tourists and listening to 
their talk, with the agreeable consciousness that, 
solid and substantial as we were to each other, we 
were quite inaudible, invisible, and intangible to 
them. Often we would dispense with the tourists, 
and have the Yosemite Yalley all to ourselves. (Al- 
ways there, and in whatever place she had visited 
with her husband, we would dispense with the figure 
of her former self and him, a sight I could not have 
borne.) 

When we had strolled and gazed our fill, it was 
delightful again, just by a slight effort of her will 
and a few moments’ closing of our eyes, to find our- 
selves driving along the Yia Cornice to an exquisite 
garden concert in Dresden, or being rowed in a 
gondola to a Saturday Pop at St. James’s Hall. And 
thence, jumping into a hansom, we would be whisk- 
ed through Piccadilly and the park to the Arc de 
Triomphe home to ‘‘ Magna sed Apta,” Kue de la 
Pompe, Passy (a charming drive, and not a bit too 
long), just in time for dinner. 

A very delicious little dinner, judiciously ordered 
out of her remembrance, not mine (and served in the 
most exquisite little dining-room in all Paris — the 


313 


PETER IBBET80N. 


Princesse de Chevagne’s) : “ huitres d’Ostende,” let 
us say, and “ soupe a la bonne femme,” with a “ per- 
drix aux choux ” to follow, and pancakes, and “ fro- 
mage de Brie and to drink, a bottle of “ Komane 
Conti;” without even the bother of waiters to 
change the dishes ; a wish, a moment’s shutting of 
the eyes — augeriblick! and it was done — and then 
we could wait on each other. 

After my prison fare, and with nothing but ten- 
penny London dinners to recollect in the immediate 
past, I trust I shall not be thought a gross material- 
ist for appreciating these small banquets, and in such 
company. (The only dinner I could recall which was 
not a tenpenny one, except the old dinners of ni}^ 
childhood, was that famous dinner at Cray, where 
I had discovered that the Duchess of Towers was 
Mimsey Seraskier, and I did not eat much of that.) 

Then a cigarette and a cup of coffee, and a glass 
of curagoa ; and after, to reach our private box we 
had but to cross the room and lift a curtain. 

And there before us was the theatre or opera- 
house brilliantly lighted, and the instruments tuning 
up, and the splendid company pouring in : crowned 
heads, famous beauties, world-renowned warriors and 
statesmen, Garibald i, Gortschakoff , Cavour, Bismarck, 
and Moltke, now so famous, and who not ? Mary 
would point them out to me. And in the next box 
Dr. Seraskier and his tall daughter, who seemed 
friends with all that brilliant crowd. 

it was St. Petersburg, now Berlin, now Vi- 
enna, Paris, Naples, Milan, London — every great city 




314 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


in turn. But our box was always the same, and 
always the best in the house, and I the one person 
privileged to smoke my cigar in the face of all that 
royalty, fashion, and splendor. 

Then, after the overture, up went the curtain. If 
it was a play, and the play was in German or Bus- 
sian or Italian,! had but to touch Mary’s little finger 
to understand it all — a true but incomprehensible 
thing. For well as I might understand, I could not 
have spoken a word of either, and the moment that 
slight contact was discontinued, they might as well 
have been acting in Greek or Hebrew, for me. 

But it was for music we cared the most, and I 
think I may say that of music during those three 
years (and ever .after) we have had our glut. For 
all through her busy waking life Mary found time to 
hear whatever good music was going on in London, 
that she might bring it back to me at night; and 
we would rehear it together, again and again, and 
da caj^o. 

It is a rare privilege for two private individuals, 
and one of them a convict, to assist at a perform- 
ance honored by the patronage and presence of 
crowned heads, and yet be able to encore any par- 
ticular thing that pleases them. How often have 
we done that ! 

Oh, Joachim! oh, Clara Schumann! oh, Piatti! — 
all of whom I know so well, but have never heard 
with the fleshly ear ! Oh, others, whom it would be 
invidious to mention without mentioning all — a 
glorious list ! How we have made you, all uncon- 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


315 


scious, repeat the same movements over and over 
again, without ever from you a sign of impatience 
or fatigue ! How often have we summoned Liszt to 
play to us on his own favorite piano, which adorned 
our own favorite sitting-room ! How little he knew 
(or will ever know now, alas !) what exquisite de- 
light he gave us ! 

Oh, Patti, Angehna! Oh, Santley and Sims 
Peeves ! Oh, He Soria, nightingale of the drawing- 
room, I wonder you have a note left ! 

And you, Pistori, and you, Salvini, et vous, divine 
Sarah, qui debutiez alors! On me dit que votre 
adorable voix a perdu un peu de sa premiere frai- 
cheur. Cela ne m’etonne pas ! Bien sur, nous y 
sommes pour quelque chose ! 


And then the picture-galleries, the museums, the 
botanical and zoological gardens of all countries — 
“ Magna sed Apta ” had space for them all, even to 
the Elgin Marbles room of the British Museum, 
which I added myself. 

What enchanted hours have we spent among the 
pictures and statues of the world, weeding them 
here and there, perhaps, or hanging them differently, 
or placing them in what we thought a better light ! 
The ‘Wenus of Milo” showed to far greater advan- 
tage in “ Magna sed Apta ” than at the Louvre. 

And when busied thus delightfully at home, and 
to enhance the delight, we made it shocking bad 
weather outside ; it rained cats and dogs, or else the 


316 


PETER IBBETSON. 


north wind piped, and snow fell on the desolate 
gardens of “ Magna sed Apta,’^ and whitened the 
landscape as far as eye could see. 

ITearest to our hearts, however, were many pict- 
ures of our own time, for we were moderns of the 
moderns, after all, in spite of our efforts of self- 
culture. 

There was scarcely a living or recently living 
master in Europe whose best works were not in our 
possession, so lighted and hung that even the masters 
themselves would have been content ; for we had 
plenty of space at our command, and each picture 
had a wall to itself, so toned as to do full justice to 
its beauty, and a comfortable sofa for two just oppo- 
site. 

But in the little room we most lived in, the room 
with the magic window, we had crowded a few spe- 
cial favorites of the English school, for we had so 
much foreign blood in us that we were more British 
than John Bull himself — royalistes que le Boi. 

There was Millais’s “Autumn Leaves,” his “Youth 
of Sir Walter Kaleigh,” his “Chill October;” Watts’s 
“ Endymion,” and “ Orpheus and Eurydice Burne- 
Jones’s “Chant d’ Amour,” and his “ Laus Veneris 
Alma - Tadema’s “ Audience of Agrippa,” and the 
“Women of Amphissa;” J. Whistler’s portrait of 
his mother; the “Venus and ^sculapius,” by E. J. 
Poynter ; F. Leighton’s “ Daphnephoria George 
Mason’s “Harvest Moon;” and Frederic Walker’s 
“ Harbor of Kefuge,” and, of course, Merridew’s 
“ Sun-God.” 


PETER IBBETSON. 


an 

While on a screen, designed by H. S. Marks, and 
exquisitely decorated round the margin with golden 
plovers and their eggs (which I adore), were smaller 
gems in oil and water-color that Mary had fallen in 
love with at one time or another. The immortal 
“Moonlight Sonata,” by Whistler; E. J. Poynter’s 
exquisite “ Our Lady of the Fields ” (dated Paris, 
1857); a pair of adorable “Bimbi” by Y. Prinsep, 
who seems very fond of children ; T. K. Lament’s 
touching “L’Apres Diner de I’Abbe Constantin,” 
with the sweet girl playing the old spinet ; and that 
admirable work of T. Armstrong, in his earher and 
more realistic manner, “Le Zouave et la Nounou,” 
not to mention splendid rough sketches by John 
Leech, Charles Keene, Tenniel, Sambourne, Furniss, 
Caldecott, etc.; not to mention, also, endless little 
sketches in silver point of a most impossibly colossal, 
blackavised, shaggy-coated St. Bernard — signed with 
the familiar French name of some gay troubadour 
of the pencil, some stray half-breed like myself, and 
who seems to have loved his dog as much as I loved 
mine. 

Then suddenly, in the midst of all this unparalleled 
artistic splendor, we felt that a something was want- 
ing. There was a certain hollowness about it ; and 
we discovered that in our case the principal motives 
for collecting all these beautiful things were absent. 

1. We were not the sole possessors. 

2. We had nobody to show them to. 

3. Therefore we could take no pride in them. 

And found that when we wanted bad weather for 


318 


1»ETER IBBETSOK. 


a change, and the joys of home, we could he quite 
as happy in my old school-room, where the squirrels 
and the monkey and the hedgehog were, with each 



THB NURSERY SCHOOL-ROOM. 


of US a cane-bottomed arm-chair by the wood-fire, 
each roasting chestnuts for the other, and one book 
between us, for one of us to read out loud ; or, better 
still, the morning and evening papers she had read 
a few hours earlier ; and marvellous to relate, she 
had not even read them when awake ! she had merely 
glanced through them carefully, taking in the aspect 
of each column one after another, from top to bot- 


^KTER IBBETSOiT. 


3l» 

tom — and yet she was able to read out every word 
from the dream-paper she held in her hands — thus 
truly chewing the very cud of journalism ! 

This always seemed to as, in a small but practical 
way, the most complete and signal triumph of mind 
over matter we had yet achieved. 

JSTot, indeed, that we could read much, we had so 
much to talk about. 

Unfortunately, the weak part of “Magna sed 
Apta” was its library. Naturally it could only con- 
sist of books that one or the other of us had read 
when awake. She had led such an active life that 
but little leisure had been left her for books, and I 
had read only as an every-day young man reads who 
is fond of reading. 

However, such books as we had read were made 
the most of, and so magnificently bound that even 
their authors would have blushed with pride and 
pleasure had they been there to see. And though 
we had little time for reading them over again, we 
could enjoy the true bibliophilous delight of gazing 
at their backs, and taking them down and fingering 
them and putting them carefully back again. 

In most of these treats, excursions, festivities, and 
pleasures of the fireside, Mary was naturally leader 
and hostess ; it could scarcely have been otherwise. 

There was once a famous Mary, of whom it was 
said that to know her was a liberal education. 1 
think I may say that to have known Mary Seras- 
kier has been all that to me ! 


320 


PfilTER IBBETSON. 


But now and then I would make some small at- 
tempt at returning her hospitality. 

We have slummed together in Clerkenwell, Smith- 
field, Cow Cross, Petticoat Lane, Batcliffe Highway, 
and the East India and West India docks. 

She has been with me to penny gaffs and music- 
halls ; to G-reenwich Fair, and Cremorne and Bo- 
sherville gardens — and liked them all. She knew 
Pentonville as well as I do ; and my old lodgings 
there, where we have both leaned over my former 
shoulder as I read or drew. It was she who rescued 
from oblivion my little prophetic song about ‘‘ The 
Chime,” which I had quite forgotten. She has been 
to Mr. Lintot’s parties, and found them most amus- 
ing — especially Mr. Lintot. 

And going further back into the past, she has 
roamed with me all over Paris, and climbed with 
me the towers of Hotre Dame, and looked in vain 
for the mystic word ’Avayicrj ! 

But I had also better things to show, untravelled 
as I was. 

She had never seen Hampstead Heath, which I 
knew by heart ; and Hampstead Heath at any time, 
but especially on a sunny morning in late October, 
is not to be disdained by any one. 

Half the leaves have fallen, so that one can see 
the fading glory of those that remain ; yellow and 
brown and pale and hectic red, shining like golden 
guineas and bright copper coins against the rich, 
dark, business-like green of the trees that mean to 
flourish all the winter through, like the tall slanting 


PETER IBBETSON. 


321 


pines near the Spaniards, and the old cedar-trees, 
and hedges of yew and holly, for which the Hamp- 
stead gardens are famous. 

Before us lies a sea of fern, gone a russet-brown 
from decay, in which are isles of dark green gorse, 
and little trees with little scarlet and orange and 
lemon-colored leaflets fluttering down, and running 
after each other on the bright grass, under the brisk 
west wind which makes the willows rustle, and turn 
up the whites of their leaves in pious resignation to 
the coming change. 

Harrow-on-the-Hill, with its pointed spire, rises 
blue in the distance ; and distant ridges, like reced- 
ing waves, rise into blueness, one after the other, out 
of the low-lying mist ; the last ridge bluely melting 
into space. In the midst of it all gleams the Welsh 
Harp Lake, like a piece of sky that has become un- 
stuck and tumbled into the landscape with its shiny 
side up. 

On the other side, all London, with nothing but 
the gilded cross of St. Paul’s on a level with the 
eye ; it lies at our feet, as Paris used to do from the 
heights of Passy, a sight to make true dreamers gaze 
and think and dream the more ; and there we sit 
thinking and dreaming and gazing our fill, hand in 
hand, our spirits rushing together. 

Once as we sat we heard the clatter of hoofs be- 
hind us, and there was a troop of my old regiment 
out exercising. Invisible to all but ourselves, and 
each other, we watched the wanton troopers riding 
by on their meek black chargers. 

21 


322 


PETER IBBETSOK. 


First came the cornet — a sunny-haired Apollo, a 
gilded youth, graceful and magnificent to the eye — 
careless, fearless, hut stupid, harsh, and proud — an 
English Phebus de Chateaupers — the son of a great 
contractor; I remembered him well, and that he 
loved me not. Then the rank and file in stable 
jackets, most of them (but for a stalwart corporal 
here and there) raw, lanky youths, giving promise 
of much future strength, and each leading a sec- 
ond horse ; and among them, longest and lankiest 
of them all, but ruddy as a ploughboy, and stol- 
idly whistling On revient toujours d ses premiers 
amour rode ray former self — a sight (or sound) 
that seemed to touch some tender chord in Mary’s 
nature, where there were so many, since it filled 
her eyes with tears. 

To describe in full a honey-moon filled with such 
adventures, and that lasted for three years, is un- 
necessary. It would be but another superficial rec- 
ord of travel, by another unskilled pen. And what 
a pen is wanted for such a theme ! It was not mere 
life, it was the very cream and essence of life, that 
we shared with each other — all the toil and trouble, 
the friction and fatigue, left out. The necessary 
earthly journey through time and space from one 
joy to another was omitted, unless such a journey 
were a joy in itself. 

For instance, a pleasant hour can be spent on the 
deck of a splendid steamer, as it cleaves its way 
through a sapphire tropical sea, bound for some 
lovely West Indian islet ; with a good cigar and the 


> ' 



1 


it * , ft ' .L * . 






324 


PETER IBBETSON. 


dearest companion in the world, watching the dol- 
phins and the flying -fish, and mildly interesting 
one’s self in one’s fellow-passengers, the captain, the 
crew. And then, the hour spent and the cigar 
smoked out, it is well to shut one’s eyes and have 
one’s self quietly lowered down the side of the ves- 
sel into a beautiful sledge, and then, half smothered 
in costl}^ furs, to be whirled along the frozen ISTeva 
to a ball at the Winter Palace, there to valse with 
one’s Mary among all the beauty and chivalry of 
St. Petersburg, and never a soul to find fault with 
one’s valsing, which at first was far from perfect, or 
one’s attire, which was not that of the fashionable 
world of the day, nor was Mary’s either. We were 
aesthetic people, and very Greek, who made for our- 
selves fashions of our own, which I will not describe. 

Where have we not waltzed together, from Buck- 
ingham Palace downward ? I confess I grew to 
take a delight in valsing, or waltzing, or whatever 
it is properly called ; and although it is not much to 
boast of, I may say that after a year or two no bet- 
ter dancer than I was to be found in all Vienna. 

And here, by the way, I may mention what pleas- 
ure it gave me (hand in hand with Mary, of course, 
as usual) to renew and improve my acquaintance 
with our British aristocracy, begun so agreeably 
many years ago at Lady Cray’s concert. 

Our British aristocracy does not waltz well by any 
means, and lacks lightness generally; but it may 
gratify and encourage some of its members to hear 
that Peter Ibbetson (ex -private soldier, architect 









326 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


and surveyor, convict and criminal lunatic), who 
has had unrivalled opportunities for mixing with 
the cream of European society, considers our Brit- 
ish aristocracy quite the best-looking, best-dressed, 
and best -behaved aristocracy of them all, and the 
most sensible and the least exclusive — perhaps the 
most sensible because the least exclusive. 

It often snubs, but does not altogether repulse, 
those gifted and privileged outsiders who (just for 
the honor and glory of the thing) are ever so ready 
to flatter and instruct and amuse it, and run its er- 
rands, and fetch and carry, and tumble for its pleas- 
ure, and even to marry such of its ugly ducklings ” 
(or shall we say such of its ‘‘ unprepossessing cyg- 
nets?”) as cannot hope to mate with birds of their 
own feather. 

For it has the true English eye for physical 
beauty. 

Indeed, it is much given to throw the handker- 
chief — successfully, of course — and, most fortunate- 
1}^ for itself, beyond the pale of its own narrow pre- 
cincts — nay, beyond the broad Atlantic, even, to the 
land where beauty and dollars are to be found in 
such happy combination. 

Nor does it disdain the comeliness of the daugh- 
ters of Israel, nor their shekels, nor their brains, nor 
their ancient and most valuable blood. It knows 
the secret virtue of that mechanical transfusion of 
fluids familiar to science under the name of “ endos- 
moses ” and “ exosmoses ” (I hope I have spelled 
them rightly), and practises the same. Whereby it 


PETER IBBETSON. 


327 


shows itself wise in its generation, and will endure 
the longer, which cannot be very long. 

Peter Ibbetson (etc., etc.), for one, wishes it no 
manner of harm. 


But to return. With all these temptations of 
travel and amusement and society and the great 
world, such was our insatiable fondness for “the 
pretty place of our childhood” and all its associa- 
tions, that our greatest pleasure of all was to live 
our old life over again and again, and make Gogo 
and Mimsey and our parents and cousins and M. le 
Major go through their old paces once more ; and 
to recall new old paces for them, which we were 
sometimes able to do, out of stray forgotten bits of 
the past ; to hunt for which was the most exciting 
sport in the world. 

Our tenderness for these beloved shades increased 
with familiarity. We could see all the charm and 
goodness and kindness of these dear fathers and 
mothers of ours with the eyes of matured experi- 
ence, for we were pretty much of an age with them 
now ; no other children could ever say as much 
since the world began, and how few young parents 
could bear such a scrutiny as ours ! 

Ah ! what would we not have given to extort just 
a spark of recognition, but that was impossible ; or 
to have been able to whisper just a word of warn- 
ing, which would have averted the impending strokes 
of inexorable fate! They might have been alive 


328 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


now, perhaps — old indeed, but honored and loved 
as no parents ever were before. How different ev- 
erything would have been ! Alas ! alas ! 

And of all things in the world, we never tired of 
that walk through the avenue and park and Bois 
de Boulogne to the Mare d’Auteuil ; strolling there 
leisurely on an early spring afternoon, just in time 
to spend a midsummer hour or two on its bank, and 
watch the old water-rat and the dj^tiscus and the 
tadpoles and newts, and see the frogs jump ; and 
then walking home at dusk in the late autumn for 
tea and roast chestnuts in the school-room of my old 
home ; and then back to warm, well-lighted “ Magna 
sed Apta” by moonlight, through the avenue on 
Hew Year’s Eve, ankle deep in snow ; all in a few 
short hours. 

Dream winds and dream weathers — what an en- 
chantment ! And all real ! 

Soft caressing rains that do not wet us if we do 
not wish them to ; sharp frosts that brace but never 
chill ; blazing suns that neither scorch nor dazzle. 

Blustering winds of early spring, that seem to 
sweep right through these solid frames of ours, and 
thrill us to the very marrow with the old heroic 
excitement and ecstasy we knew so well in happy 
childhood, but can no longer feel now when awake ! 

Bland summer breezes, heavy with the scent of 
long lost French woods and fields and gardens in 
full fiower ; swift, soft, moist equinoctial gales, blow- 
ing from the far-off orchards of Meudon, or the old 
market gardens of Suresnes in their autumnal de- 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


329 


cay, and laden, we do not know why, with strange, 
mysterious, troubling reminiscence too subtle and 
elusive to be expressed in any tongue — too sweet 
for any words ! And then the dark December wind 
that comes down from the north, and brings the 
short, early twilights and the snow, and drives us 
home, pleasantly shivering, to the chimney-corner 
and the hissing logs — chez nous! 

It is the last night of an old year — la veille du 
jour de Van. 

Ankle-deep in snow, we walk to warm, well-light- 
ed “ Magna sed Apta,” up the moonlit avenue. It 
is dream snow, and yet we feel it crunch beneath 
our feet ; but if we turn to look, the tracks of our 
footsteps have disappeared — and we cast no shad- 
ows, though the moon is full ! 

M. le Major goes by, and Yverdon the postman, 
and Pere Francois, with his big sabots, and others, 
and their footprints remain — and their shadows are 
strong and sharp ! 

They wish each other the compliments of the sea- 
son as they meet and pass ; they wish us nothing ! 
We give them la honne annee at the tops of our 
voices ; they do not heed us in the least, though 
our voices are as resonant as theirs. We are wish- 
ing them a ‘‘ Happy Hew Year,” that dawned for 
good or evil nearly twenty years ago. 

Out comes Gogo from the Seraskiers’, with Mim- 
sey. He makes a snowball and throws it. It flies 
straight through me, and splashes itself on Pere 
Francois’s broad back. Ah, ce polisson de Mon- 


330 


PETER IBBETSON. 


sieur Gogo . . . attendez un peu !” and Pere Fran- 
9ois returns the compliment — straight through me 
again, as it seems ; and I do not even feel it ! Mary 
and I are as solid to each other as flesh and blood 
can make us. We cannot even touch these dream 
people without their melting away into thin air ; we 
can only hear and see them, but that in perfection ! 

There goes that little Andre Corbin, the poulter- 
er’s son, running along the slippery top of Madame 
Pele’s garden wall, which is nearly ten feet high. 

“ Good heavens,” cries Mary, “ stop him ! Don’t 
you remember? When he gets to the corner he’ll 
fall down and break both his legs !” 

I rush and bellow out to him — 

“ Descends done, malheureux ; tu vas te casser les 
deux jambes ! Saute ! saute !” . . .1 cry, holding out 
my arms. He does not pay the slightest attention ; 
he reaches the corner, followed low down by Gogo 
and Mimsey, who are beside themselves with gener- 
ous envy and admiration. Stimulated by their ap- 
plause, he becomes more foolhardy than ever, and 
even tries to be droll, and standing on one leg, sings 
a little song that begins — 


“Maman m’a doime quat’ sous 
Pour m’en aller ^ la foire, 

Non pas pour manger ni boire, 

Mais pour m’regaler d’joujoux I” 

Then suddenly down he slips, poor boy, and 
breaks both his legs below the knee on an iron rail, 
whereby he becomes a cripple for life. 









332 


PETER IBBETSON. 


All this sad little tragedy of a New-year’s Eve 
plays itself anew. The sympathetic crowd col- 
lects; Mimsey and Gogo weep; the heart-broken 
parents arrive, and the good little doctor Larcher ; 
and Mary and I look on like criminals, so impossi- 
ble it seems not to feel that we might have pre- 
vented it all ! 

We two alone are alive and substantial in all this 
strange world of shadows, who seem, as far as we 
can hear and see, no less substantial and alive than 
ourselves. They exist for us ; we do not exist for 
them. We exist for each other only, waking or 
sleeping; for even the people among whom our 
waking life is spent know hardly more of us, and 
what our real existence is, than poor little Andre 
Corbin, who has just broken his legs for us over 
again ! 

And so, back to “ Magna sed Apta,” both sad- 
dened by this deplorable misadventure, to muse and 
talk and marvel over these wonders ; penetrated to 
the ver}^ heart’s core by a dim sense of some vast, 
mysterious power, latent in the sub-consciousness of 
man — unheard of, undreamed of as yet, but linking 
him with the Infinite and the Eternal. 

And how many things we always had to talk 
about besides ! 

Heaven knows, I am not a brilliant conversation- 
alist, but she was the most easily amusable person 
in the world — interested in everything that inter- 
ested me, and I disdamaged myself (to use one of 
her Anglo-Gallicisms) of the sulky silence of years, 


PETER IBBETSON. 


333 


Of her as a companion it is not for me to speak. 
It would be impertinent, and even ludicrous, for a 
person in my position to dilate on the social gifts 
of the famous Duchess of Towers. 

Incredible as it may appear, however, most of our 
conversation was about very common and earthly 
topics — her homes and refuges, the difficulties of 
their management, her eternal want of money, her 
many schemes and plans and experiments and fail- 
ures and disenchantments — in all of which I natu- 
rally took a very warm interest. And then my jail, 
and all that occurred there — in all of which I be- 
came interested myself because it interested her so 
passionately ; she knew every corner of it that I 
knew, every detail of the life there — the name, ap- 
pearance, and history of almost every inmate, and 
criticised its internal economy with a practical 
knowledge of affairs, a business-like sagacity at 
which I never ceased to marvel. 

One of my drollest recollections is of a visit she 
paid there in the fleshy accompanied by some famous 
philanthropists of both sexes. I was interviewed 
by them all as the model prisoner, who, but for his 
unorthodoxy, was a credit to the institution. She 
listened demurely to my intelligent answers when I 
was questioned as to my bodily health, etc., and 
asked whether I had any complaints to make. 
Complaints! Never was jail -bird so thoroughly 
satisfied with his nest— so healthy, so happy, so well- 
behaved. She took notes all the time. 

Eight hours before we had been strolling hand in 


L'CTt®*’. 



hand through the Ufiizi Gallery in Florence ; eight 
hours later we should be in each other’s arms. 


Strange to relate, this happiness of ours — so deep, 
so acute, so transcendent, so unmatched in all the 
history of human affection — was not always free 
of unreasonable longings and regrets. Man is never 
so blessed but what he would have his blessedness 
still greater. 

The reality of our close companionship, of our 
true possession of each other (during our allotted 
time), was absolute, complete, and thorough. No 
Darby that ever lived can ever have had sweeter, 
warmer, more tender memories of any Joan than I 
have now of Mary Seraskier ! Although each was, 
in a way, but a seeming illusion of the other’s brain, 
the illusion was no illusion for us. It was an illu- 


1»ETER IBBETSON. 


335 


sion that showed the truth, as does the illusion of 
sight. Like twin kernels in one shell (“ Philipschen,’’ 
as Mary called it), we touched at more points and 
were closer than the rest of mankind (with each of 
them a separate shell of his own). We tried and 
tested this in every way we could devise, and never 
found ourselves at fault, and never ceased to marvel 
at so great a wonder. For instance, I received let- 
ters from her in jail (and answered them) in an in- 
tricate cipher we had invented and perfected to- 
gether entirely during sleep, and referring to things 
that had happened to us both when together.* 

Our privileges were such as probably no human 
beings could have ever enjoyed before. Time and 
space were annihilated for us at the mere wish of 
either — we lived in a palace of delight ; all conceiv- 
able luxuries were ours — and, better than all, and 
perennially, such freshness and elation as belong 
only to the morning of life — and such a love for 
each other (the result of circumstances not to be 
paralleled) as time could never slake or quench till 
death should come and part us. All this, and 
more, was our portion for eight hours out of every 
twenty-four. 

So what must we do sometimes, but fret that the 
sixteen hours which remained did not belong to us 
as well ; that we must live two-thirds of our lives 
apart ; that we could not share the toils and troubles 
of our work-a-day, waking existence, as we shared 

♦ Note . — Several of these letters are in my possession. 

Madge Plunket. 


336 


PETER IBBETSON. 


the blissful guerdon of our seeming sleep — the 
grlories of our common dream. 

And tlien we would lament the lost years we had 
spent in mutual ignorance and separation — a de- 
plorable waste of life ; when life, sleeping or wak- 
ing, was so short. 

How different things might have been with us 
had we but known ! 

We need never have lost sight and touch of each 
other ; we might have grown up, and learned and 
worked and struggled together from the first — boy 
and girl, brother and sister, lovers, man and wife 
— and yet have found our blessed dream-land and 
dwelt in it just the same. 

Children might have been born to us ! Sweet chil- 
dren, heaxix comme le jour^ as in Madame Perrault’s 
fairy tales ; even beautiful and good as their mother. 

And as we talked of these imaginary little beings 
and tried to picture them, we felt in ourselves such 
a stupendous capacity for loving the same that we 
would fall to weeping on each other’s shoulders. 
Full well I knew, even as if they had formed part 
of my own personal experience, all the passion and 
tenderness, all the wasted anguish of her brief, ill- 
starred motherhood : the very ache of my jealousy 
that she should have borne a child to another man 
was forgotten in that keen and thorough compre- 
hension ! Ah, yes . . . that hungry love, that wo- 
ful pity, which not to know is hardly quite to have 
lived ! Childless as I am (though old enough to be 
a grandfather) I have it all by heart ! 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


337 


IN’ever could we hope for son or daughter of our 
own. For us the blessed flower of love in rich, pro- 
fuse, unfading bloom ; but its blessed fruit of life, 
never, never, never ! 

Our only children were Mimsey and Gogo, be- 
tween whom and ourselves was an impassable gulf, 
and who were unconscious of our very existence, 
except for Mimsey’s strange consciousness that a 
Fairy Tarapatapoum and a Prince Charming were 
watching over them. 

All this would always end, as it could not but end, 
in our realizing the more fully our utter depend- 
ence on each other for all that made life not only 
worth living, ingrates that we were, but a heaven 
on earth for us both ; and, indeed, we could not but 
recognize that merely thus to love and be loved was 
in itself a thing so immense (without all the other 
blessings we had) that we were fain to tremble at 
our audacity in daring to wish for more. 


Thus sped three years, and would have sped all 
the rest, perhaps, but for an incident that made an 
epoch in our joint lives, and turned all our thoughts 
and energies in a new direction. 


338 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


Ipart Sfjtb* 



been subjected by one of the prison 
authorities had kept me awake for a little while after 
I had gone to bed, so that when at last I awoke in 
“ Magna sed Apta,” and lay on my couch there (with 
that ever-fresh feeling of coming to life in heaven 
after my daily round of work in an earthly jail), I 
was conscious that Mary was there already, making 


PETER IBBETSON. 


339 


coffee, the fragrance of which filled the room, and 
softly humming a tune as she did so — a quaint, 
original, but most beautiful tune, that thrilled me 
with indescribable emotion, for I had never heard 
it with the bodily ear before, and yet it was as fa- 
miliar to me as “ God save the Queen.*’ 

As I hstened with rapt ears and closed eyes, won- 
derful scenes passed before my mental vision : the 
beautiful white-haired lady of my childish dreams, 
leading a female child by the hand, and that 
child was myself ; the pigeons and their tower, the 
stream and the water-mill ; the white-haired young 
man with red heels to his shoes ; a very fine lady, 
very tall, stout, and middle-aged, magnificently 
dressed in brocaded silk; a park with lawns and 
alleys and trees cut into trim formal shapes ; a tur- 
reted castle — all kinds of charming scenes and peo- 
ple of another age and country. 

“ What on earth is that wonderful tune, Mary 
I exclaimed, when she had finished it. 

“ It’s my favorite tune,” she answered ; “ I seldom 
hum it for fear of wearing away its charm. I sup- 
pose that is why you have never heard it before. 
Isn’t it lovely ? I’ve been trying to lull you awake 
with it. 

“ My grandfather, the violinist, used to play it 
with variations of his own, and made it famous in 
his time ; but it was never published, and it’s now 
forgotten. 

“ It is called ^ Le Chant du Triste Commensal,’ 
and was composed by his grandmother, a beautiful 


340 


PETER IBBETSON. 


French woman, who played the fiddle too ; but not 
as a profession. He remembered her playing it 
when he was a child and she was quite an old lady, 
just as I remember his playing it when I was a girl 
in Vienna, and he was a white-haired old man. She 
used to play holding her fiddle downward, on her 
knee, it seems ; and always played in perfect tune, 
quite in the middle of the note, and with excellent 
taste and expression; it was her playing that de- 
cided his career. But she was like ‘ Single-speech 
Hamilton,’ for this was the only thing she ever com- 
posed. She composed it under great grief and ex- 
citement, just after her husband had died from the 
bite of a wolf, and just before the birth of her twin- 
daughters — her only children — one of whom was 
my great-grandmother.” 

“ And what was this wonderful old lady’s name ?” 

“ Gatienne Aubery ; she married a Breton squire 
called Budes, who was a gentilhomrne verrier near St. 
Brest, in Anjou — that is, he made glass — decanters, 
water-bottles, tumblers, and all that, I suppose — in 
spite of his nobility. It was not considered deroga- 
tory to do so; indeed, it was the onl}^ trade permit- 
ted to the noblesse^ and one had to be at lea^t a 
squire to engage in it. 

“ She was a very notable woman, la belle Yerriere^ 
as she was called ; and she managed the glass factory 
for many years after her husband’s death, and made 
lots of money for her two daughters.” 

How strange !” I exclaimed ; “ Gatienne Aubery ! 
Dame du Brail — Budes— the names are quite famil- 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


341 


iar to me. Mathurin Budes, Seigneur de Monhou- 
deard et de Yerny le Moustier.” 

“ Yes, that’s it. How wonderful that you should 
know ! One daughter, Jeanne, married my great- 
grandfather, an officer in the Hungarian army ; and 
Seraskier, the fiddler, was their only child. The 
other (so like her sister that only her mother could 
distinguish them) was called Anne, and married a 
Comte de Bois something.” 

‘‘ Boismorinel. Why, all those names are in my 
family too. My father used to make me paint their 
arms and quarterings when I was a child, on Sunday 
mornings, to keep me quiet. Perhaps we are related 
by blood, you and I.” 

Oh, that would be too delightful !” said Mary. 
“ I wonder how we could find out ? Have you no 
family papers ?” 

I. “ There were lots of them, in a horse-hair trunk, 
but I don’t know where they are now. What good 
would family papers have been to me? Ibbetson 
took charge of them when I changed my name. I 
suppose his lawyers have got them.” 

She. ‘‘ Happy thought ; we will do without law- 
yers. Let us go round to your old house, and make 
Gogo paint the quarterings over again for us, and 
look over his shoulder.” 

Happy thought, indeed! We drank our coffee 
and went straight to my old house, with the wish 
(immediate father to the deed) that Gogo should be 
there, once more engaged in his long-forgotten ac- 
complishment of painting coats of arms. 


342 


PETER IBBETSON. 


It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and we found 
Gogo hard at work at a small table by an open 
window. The floor was covered with old deeds and 
parchments and family papers; and le beau Pas- 
quier, at another table, was deep’ in his own pedi- 
gree, making notes on the margin — an occupation in 
which he delighted — and unconsciously humming as 
he did so. The sunny room was filled with the pen- 
etrating soft sound of his voice, as a conservatory is 
filled with the scent of its flowers. 

By the strangest inconsistency my dear father, a 
genuine republican at heart (for all his fancied loy- 
alty to the white lily of the Bourbons), a would-be 
scientist, who in reality was far more impressed by a 
clever and industrious French mechanic than by a 
prince (and would, I think, have preferred the for* 
mer’s friendship and society), yet took both a pleas- 
ure and a pride in his quaint old parchments and 
obscure quarterings. So would I, perhaps, if things 
had gone differently with me — for what true demo- 
crat, however intolerant of such weakness in others, 
ever thinks lightly of his own personal claims to 
aristocratic descent, shadowy as these may be ! 

He was fond of such proverbs and aphorisms as 
noblesse oblige,” ‘‘ bon sang ne sait mentir,” “ bon 
chien chasse de race,” etc., and had even invented 
a little aphorism of his own, to comfort him when 
he was extra hard up, “bon gentilhomme n’a ja- 
mais honte de la misere.” All of which sayings, 
to do him justice, he reserved for home consump- 
tion exclusively, and he would have been the first 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


343 


to laugh on hearing them in the mouth of any one 
else. 

Of his one great gift, the treasure in his throat, he 
thought absolutely nothing at all. 

‘‘ Ce que c’est que de nous 

Gogo was coloring the quarterings of the Pasquier 
family — la maison de Pasquier^ as it was called — in a 
printed book {Armorial General du Maine et de VAn- 
jou), according to the instructions that were given 
underneath. He used one of Madame Liard’s three- 
sou boxes, and the tints left much to be desired. 

We looked over his shoulder and read the pictur- 
esque old jargon, which sounds even prettier and 
more comforting and more idiotic in French than in 
English. It ran thus — 

“ Pasquier (branche des Seigneurs de la Mariere 
et du Hirel), party de 4 pieces et coupe de 2. 

“Au premier, de Herault, qui est ecartele de 
gueules et d’argent. 

“ Au deux, de Budes, qui est d’or au pin de sinople. 

“Au trois, d’Aubery — qui est d’azur a trois crois- 
sants d’argent. 

“Au quatre, de Busson, qui est d’argent au lyon 
de sable arme couronne et lampasse d’or.” And so 
on, through the other quarterings : Bigot, Epinay, 
Malestroit, Mathefelon. And finally, “ Sur le tout, 
de Pasquier qui est d’or a trois lyons d’azur, au franc 
quartier ecartele des royaumes de Castille et de 
Leon.” 

Presently my mother came home from the Eng- 
lish chapel in the Eue Marboeuf, where she had been 


344 


PETER IBBETSON. 


with Sarah, the English maid. Lunch was announced, 
and we were left alone with the family papers. With 
infinite precautions, for fear of blurring the dream, 
we were able to find what we wanted to find — 
namely, that we were the great-great-grandchildren 
and only possible living descendants of Gatienne, 
the fair glass-maker and composer of “ Le Chant du 
Triste Commensal.” 

Thus runs the descent — 


Jean Aubery, Seigneur du Brail, married Anne Busson. His 
daughter, Gatienne Aubery, Dame du Brail, married Mathurin 
Budes, Seigneur de Verny le Moustier et de Monhoudeard. 


Anne Budes, Dame de Verny 
le Moustier, married Guy He- 
rault, Comte de Boismorinel. 

Jeanne Frangoise Herault de 
Boismorinel married Fran- 
9ois Pasquier de la Mari^re. 

Jean Pasquier de la Mari^re 
married Catharine Ibbetson- 
Biddulph. 

Pierre Pasquier de la Mari^re 
{alias Peter Ibbetson, con. 
vict). 


Jeanne Budes, Dame du Brail 
et de Monhoudeard, married 
Ulric Seraskier. 

Otto Seraskier, violinist, mar- 
ried Teresa Pulci. 


Johann Seraskier, M.D., mar- 
ried Laura Desmond. 


Mary Seraskier, Duchess of 
Towers. 


We walked back to “ Magna sed Apta” in great 
joy, and there we celebrated our newly-discovered 
kinship by a simple repast, out of nvy repertoire this 
time. It consisted of oysters from Kules’s in Maiden 


PETER IBBETSON. 


345 


Lane, when they were sixpence a dozen, and bottled 
stout {Veau rn^en vient d la bouche ) ; and we spent the 
rest of the hours allotted to us that night in evolv- 
ing such visions as we could from the old tune “ Le 
Chant du Triste Commensal,” with varying success ; 
she humming it, accompanying herself on the piano 
in her masterly, musician-like way, with one hand, 
and seeing all that I saw by holding my hand with 
the other. 

By slow degrees the scenes and people evoked 
grew less dim, and whenever the splendid and im- 
portant lady, whom we soon identified for certain 
as Gatienne, our common great-great-grandmother, 
appeared — “la belle verriere de Yerny le Moustier ” 
— she was more distinct than the others ; no doubt, 
because we both had part and parcel in her indi- 
viduality, and also because her individuality was so 
strongly marked. 

And before I was called away at the inexorable 
hour, we had the supreme satisfaction of seeing her 
play the fiddle to a shadowy company of patched 
and powdered and bewigged ladies and gentlemen, 
who seemed to take much sympathetic delight in 
her performance, and actually, even, of just hearing 
the thin, unearthly tones of that most original and 
exquisite melody, “ Le Chant'du Triste Commensal,” 
to a quite inaudible accompaniment on the spinet 
by her daughter, evidently Anne Herault, Comtesse 
de Boismorinel {nee Budes), while the small child 
Jeanne de Boismorinel (afterwards Dame Pasquier 
de la Mariere) listened with dreamy rapture. 


346 


PETER IBBETSON. 


And, just as Mary had said, she played her fiddle 
with its body downward, and resting on her knees, 
as though it had been an undersized V.ello. I then 
vaguely remembered having dreamed of such a fig- 
ure when a small child. 

Within twenty-four hours of this strange advent- 
ure the practical and business-like Mary had started, 
in the flesh and with her maid, for that part of 
France where these, my ancestors, had lived, and 
within a fortnight she had made herself mistress of 
all my French family history, and had visited such 
of the different houses of my kin as were still in 
existence. 

The turreted castle of my childish dreams, which, 
with the adjacent glass - factory, was still called 
Yerny le Moustier, was one of these. She found it 
in the possession of a certain Count Hector du Cha- 
morin, whose grandfather had purchased it at the 
beginning of the century. 

He had built an entirely new plant, and made it 
one of the first glass-factories in Western France. 
But the old turreted corjps de logis still remained, and 
his foreman lived there with his wife and family. 
IhQ ^igeonnier had been pulled down to make room 
for a shed with a steam-engine, and the whole as- 
pect of the place was revolutionized ; but the stream 
and water-mill (the latter a mere picturesque ruin) 
were still there ; the stream was, however, little 
more than a ditch, some ten feet deep and twenty 
broad, with a fringe of gnarled and twisted willows 
and alders, many of them dead. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


347 


It was called ‘‘ Le Brail,’’ and had given its name 
to my great-great-grandmother’s property, whence 
it had issued thirty miles away (and many hundred 
years ago) ; but the old Chateau du Brail, the manor 
of the Auberys, had become a farm-house. 



The Chateau de la Mariere, in its walled park, and 
with its beautiful, tall, hexagonal tower, dated 1550, 


348 


PETER IBBETSON. 


and visible for miles around, was now a prosperous 
cider brewery ; it is still, and lies on the high-road 
from Angers to Le Mans. 

The old forest of Boismorinel, that had once be- 
longed to the family of Herault, Avas still in exist- 
ence ; charcoal - burners were to be found in its 
depths, and a stray roebuck or two ; but no more 
Avolves and wild-boars, as in the olden time. And 
where the old castle had been now stood the new 
railway station of Boismorinel et Saint Maixent. 

Most of such Budes, Bussons, Heraults, Auberys, 
and Pasquiers as were still to be found in the coun- 
try, probably distant kinsmen of Mary’s and mine, 
were laAvyers, doctors, or priests, or had gone into 
trade and become respectably uninteresting; such 
as they Avere, they would scarcely have cared to 
claim kinship Avith such as I. 

But a hundred years ago and more these were 
names of importance in Maine and Anjou; their 
bearers Avere descended for the most part from 
younger branches of houses which in the Middle 
Ages had intermarried AAuth all there was of the 
best in France ; and although they Avere looked 
down upon by the noblesse of the court and Yer- 
sailles, as were all the provincial nobility, they held 
their own Avell in their own county ; feasting, hunt- 
ing, and shooting with each other ; dancing and fid- 
dling and making love and intermarrying ; and bloAv- 
ing glass, and growing richer and richer, till the 
Kevolution came and bleAv them and their glass into 
space, and with them many greater than themselves, 


PETER IBBETSOK. 


349 


but few better. And all record of them and of their 
doings, pleasant and genial people as they were, is 
lost, and can only be recalled by a dream. . 

Yerny le Moustier was not the least interesting 
of these old manors. 

It had been built three hundred years ago, on the 
site of a still older monastery (whence its name) ; 
the ruined walls of the old abbey were (and are) 
still extant in the house-garden, covered with apri- 
cot and pear and peach trees, which had been sown 
or planted by our common ancestress when she was 
a bride. 

Count Hector, who took a great pleasure in ex- 
plaining all the past history of the place to Mary, 
had built himself a fine new house in what remained 
of the old park, and a quarter of a mile away from 
the old manor-house. Every room of the latter was 
shown to her ; old wood panels still remained, pret- 
tily painted in a by-gone fashion; old documents, 
and parchment deeds, and leases concerning fish- 
ponds, farms, and the like, were brought out for her 
inspection, signed by my grandfather Pasquier, my 
great-grandfather Boismorinel, and our great-great- 
grandmother and her husband, Mathurin Budes, the 
lord of Yerny le Moustier; and the tradition of Ga- 
tienne, la helle Verriere (also nicknamed la reine de 
Hongrie^ it seems) still lingered in the county ; and 
many old people still remembered, more or less cor- 
rectly, ‘‘Le Chant du Triste Commensal,” which a 
hundred years ago had been in everybody’s mouth. 

She was said to have been the tallest and hand- 


PETER IBPETSON. 


SoO 

somest woman in Anjou, of an imperious will and 
very masculine character, but immensely popular 
among rich and poor alike ; of indomitable energy, 
and with a finger in every pie; but always more 
for the good of others than her own — a typical, 
managing, business-like French woman, and an ex- 
quisite musician to boot. 

Such was our common ancestress, from whom, no 
doubt, we drew our love of music and our strange, 
almost hysterical susceptibility to the power of 
sound ; from whom had issued those two born night- 
ingales of our race — Seraskier, the violinist, and my 
father, the singer. And, strange to say, her eye- 
brows met at the bridge of her nose just like mine, 
and from under them beamed the luminous, black- 
fringed, gray-blue eyes of Mary, that suffered eclipse 
whenever their owners laughed or smiled ! 

During this interesting journey of Mary’s in the 
flesh, we met every night at “ Magna sed Apta ” in 
the spirit, as usual ; and I was made to participate 
in every incident of it. 

We sat by the magic window, and had for our 
entertainment, now the Yerrerie de Yerny le Mous- 
tier in its present state, all full of modern life, color, 
and sound, steam and gas, as she had seen it a few 
hours before ; now the old chateau as it was a hun- 
dred years ago ; dim and indistinct, as though seen 
by near-sighted eyes at the close of a gray, misty 
afternoon in late autumn through a blurred win- 
dow-pane, with busy but silent shadows moving 
about — silent, because at first we could not hear 



ft 










352 


1>ETER IBBETSON. 


their speech ; it was too thin for our mortal ears, 
even in this dream within our dream! Only Ga- 
tienne, the authoritative and commanding Gatienne, 
was faintly audible. 

Then we would go down and mix with them. 
Thus, at one moment, we would be in the midst of 
a charming old-fashioned French family group of 
shadows : Gatienne, with her lovely twin-daughters 
Jeanne and Anne, and her gardeners round her, all 
trailing young peach and apricot trees against what 
still remained of the ancient buttresses and walls of 
the Abbaye de Yerny le Moustier — all this more 
than a hundred years ago — the pale sun of a long- 
past noon casting the fainter shadows of these faint 
shadows on the shadowy garden-path. 

Then, presto ! Changing the scene as one changes 
a slide in a magic-lantern, we would skip a century, 
and behold! 

Another French family group, equally charming, 
on the self-same spot, but in the garb of to-day, and 
no longer shadowy or mute by any means. Little 
trees have grown big ; big trees have disappeared 
to make place for industrious workshops and ma- 
chinery ; but the old abbey walls have been respect- 
ed, and gay, genial father, and handsome mother, 
and lovely daughters, all pressing on “la belle 
Duchesse Anglaise” peaches and apricots of her 
great-great-grandmother’s growing. 

For this amiable family of the Chamorin became 
devoted to Mary in a very short time — that is, the 
very moment they first saw her ; and she never for- 


PETER TBBETSON. 


353 


got their kindness, courtesy, and hospitality ; they 
made her feel in five minutes as though she had 
known them for many years. 

I may as well state here that a few months later 
she received from Mademoiselle du Chamorin (with 
a charming letter) the identical violin that had once 
belonged to la helle Yerriere^ and which Count Hec- 
tor had found in the possession of an old farmer — 
the great-grandson of Gatienne’s coachman — and 
had purchased, that he might present it as a Hew- 
year’s gift to her descendant, the Duchess of Towers. 

It is now mine, alas! I cannot play it; but it 
amuses and comforts me to hold in my hand, when 
broad and wide awake, an instrument that Mary 
and I have so often heard and seen in our dream, 
and which has so often rung in by-gone days with 
the strange melody that has had so great an infiu- 
ence on our lives. Its aspect, shape, and color, ev- 
ery mark and stain of it, were familiar to us before 
we had ever seen it with the bodily eye or handled 
it with the hand of fiesh. It thus came straight to 
us out of the dim and distant past, heralded by the 
ghost of itself 1 ^ 

To return. Gradually, by practice and the con- 
centration of our united will, the old-time figures 
grew to gain substance and color, and their voices 
became perceptible; till at length there arrived a 
day when we could move among them, and hear 
them and see them as distinctly as we could our 
23 


854 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


own immediate progenitors close by — as Gogo and 
Mimsey, as Monsieur le Major, and the rest. 

The child who went about hand in hand with the 
white-haired lady (whose hair was only powdered) 
and fed the pigeons was my grandmother, Jeanne 
de Boismorinel (who married Fran9ois Pasquier de 
la Mariere). It was her father who wore red heels 
to his shoes, and made her believe she could man- 
ufacture little cocked -hats in colored glass; she 
had lived again in me whenever, as a child, I had 
dreamed that exquisite dream. 

I could now evoke her at will ; and, with her, 
many buried memories were called out of nothing- 
ness into life. 

Among other wonderful things, I heard the red- 
heeled gentleman, M. de Boismorinel (my great- 
grandfather), sing beautiful old songs by Lulli and 
others to the spinet, which he played charmingly — 
a rare accomplishment in those days. And lo! 
these tunes were tunes that had risen oft and un- 
bidden in my consciousness, and I had fondly im- 
agined that I had composed them myself — little im- 
promptus of my own. And lo, again ! His voice, 
thin, high, nasal, but very sympathetic and musical, 
was that never still small voice that has been sin^- 
ing unremittingly for more than half a century in 
the unswept, ungarnished corner of my brain where 
all the cobwebs are. 

And these cobwebs ? 

Well, I soon became aware, by deeply diving into 
my inner consciousness when awake and at my 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


355 


daily prison toil (which left the mind singularly 
clear and free), that I was full, quite full, of slight 



“that never still small voice.” 


elusive reminiscences which were neither of my 
waking life nor of my dream-life with Mary : remi- 
niscences of sub-dreams during sleep, and belonging 
to the period of my childhood and early youth ; 
sub -dreams which no doubt had been forgotten 
when I woke, at which time I could only remember 
the surface dreams that had just preceded my 
waking. 

Ponds, rivers, bridges, roads, and streams, avenues 



356 


PETER IBBETSON. 


of trees, arbors, windmills and water-nfills, corridors 
and rooms, church functions, village fairs, festivities, 
men and women and animals, all of another time 
and of a country where I had never set my foot, 
were familiar to my remembrance. I had but to 
dive deep enough into myself, and there they were ; 
and when night came, and sleep, and ‘‘ Magna sed 
Apta,” I could re-evoke them all, and make them 
real and complete for Mary and myself. 

That these subtle reminiscences were true ante- 
natal memories was soon proved by my excursions 
with Mary into the past ; and her experience of such 
reminiscences, and their corroboration, were just as 
my own. We have heard and seen her grandfather 
play the “ Chant du Triste Commensal ’’ to crowded 
concert-rooms, applauded to the echo by men and 
women long dead and buried and forgotten ! 

1^0 w, I believe such reminiscences to form part of 
the sub -consciousness of others, as well as Mary’s 
and mine, and that by perseverance in self -research 
many will succeed in i caching them — perhaps even 
more easily and completely than we have done. 

It is something like listening for the overtones of 
a musical note ; we do not hear them at first, though 
they are there, clamoring for recognition ; and when 
at last we hear them, we wonder at our former ob- 
tuseness, so distinct are they. 

Let a man with an average ear, however unculti- 
vated, strike the C low down on a good piano-forte, 
keeping his foot on the loud pedal. At first he will 
hear nothing but the rich fundamental note C. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


357 


But let him become expectant of certain other 
notes; for instance, of the C in the octave imme- 
diately above, then the G immediately above that, 
then the E higher still ; he will hear them all in time 
as clearly as the note originally struck ; and, finally, 
a shrill little ghostly and quite importunate B fiat 
in the treble will pulsate so loudly in his ear that he 
will never cease to hear it whenever that low C is 
sounded. 

By just such a process, only with infinitely more 
pains (and in the end with what pleasure and sur- 
prise), will he grow aware in time of a dim, latent, 
antenatal experience that underlies his own personal 
experience of this life. 

We also found that we were able not only to as- 
sist as mere spectators at such past scenes as I have 
described (and they were endless), but also to iden- 
tify ourselves occasionally with the actors, and cease 
for the moment to be Mary Seraskier and Peter Ib- 
betson. Notably was this the case with Gatienne. 
We could each be Gatienne for a space (though 
never both of us together), and when we resumed 
our own personality again we carried back with it a 
portion of hers, never to be lost again — a strange 
phenomenon, if the reader will but think of it, and 
constituting the germ of a comparative personal im- 
mortality on earth. 

At my work in prison, even, I could distinctly 
remember having been Gatienne; so that for the 
time being, Gatienne, a provincial French woman 
who lived a hundred years ago, was contentedly un- 


358 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


dergoing penal servitude in an English jail during 
the latter half of the nineteenth century. 

A questionable privilege, perhaps. 

But to make up for it, when she was not alive in 
me she could be brought to life in Mary (only in one 
at a time, it seemed), and travel by rail and steamer, 
and know the uses of gas and electricity, and read 
the telegrams of ‘‘ our special correspondents ” in 
the Times^ and taste her nineteenth century under 
more favorable conditions. 

Thus we took la helle Yerriere by turns, and she 
saw and heard things she little dreamed of a hun- 
dred years ago. Besides, she was made to share in 
the glories of “ Magna sed Apta.” 

And the better we knew her the more we loved 
her ; she was a very nice person to descend from, 
and Mary and I were well agreed that we could not 
have chosen a better great-great-grandmother, and 
wondered what each of our seven others was like, 
for we had fifteen of these between us, and as many 
great-great-grandfathers. 

Thirty great-great-grandfathers and great-great- 
grandmothers had made us what we were ; it was 
no good fighting against them and the millions at 
their backs. 

Which of them all, strong, but gentle and shy, 
and hating the very sight of blood, yet saw scarlet 
when he was roused, and thirsted for the blood of 
his foe ? 

Which of them all, passionate and tender, but 
proud, high-minded, and chaste, and with the world 


PETER IBBETSON. 


359 


at her feet, was yet ready to ‘‘ throw her cap over 
the windmills,” and give up all for love, deeming 
the world well lost ? 


That we could have thus identified ourselves, only 
more easily and thoroughly, with our own more im- 
mediate progenitors, we felt certain enough. But 
after mature thought we resolved to desist from 
any further attempt at such transfusion of identity, 
for sacred reasons of discretion which the reader 
will appreciate. 

But that this will be done some day (now the 
way has been made clear), and also that the in- 
conveniences and possible abuses of such a faculty 
will be obviated or minimized by the ever -active 
ingenuity of mankind, is to my mind a foregone 
conclusion. 

It is too valuable a faculty to be left in abeyance, 
and I leave the probable and possible consequences 
of its culture to the reader’s imagination — merely 
pointing out to him (as an inducement to cultivate 
that faculty in himself) that if anything can keep us 
well within the thorny path that leads to happiness 
and virtue, it is the certainty that those who come 
after us will remember having been ourselves, if 
only in a dream — even as the newly-hatched chicken 
has remembered in its egg the use of eyes and ears 
and the rest, out of the fulness of its long antenatal 
experience; and more fortunate than the helpless 
human infant in this respect, can enter on the busi- 


360 


PETER IBBETSON. 


ness and pleasures of its brief, irresponsible exist* 
ence at once ! 


Wherefore, oh reader, if you be but sound in mind 
and body, it most seriously behooves you (not only 
for the sake of those who come after you, but your 
own) to go forth and multiply exceedingly, to marry 
early and much and often, and to select the very 
best of your kind in the opposite sex for this most 
precious, excellent, and blessed purpose; that all 
your future reincarnations (and hers), however brief, 
may be many ; and bring you not only joy and peace 
and pleasurable wonderment and recreation, but the 
priceless guerdon of well-earned self -approval ! 

For whoever remembers having once been you, 
wakes you for the nonce out of — nirvana, shall we 
say? His strength, his beauty, and his wit are 
yours ; and the felicity he derives from them in this 
earthly life is for you to share, whenever this subtle 
remembrance of you stirs in his consciousness ; and 
you can never quite sink back again into — nirvana, 
till all your future wakers shall cease to be ! 

It is like a little old-fashioned French game we 
used to play at Passy, and which is not bad for a 
dark, rainy afternoon: people sit all round in a 
circle, and each hands on to his neighbor a spill or 
a lucifer-match just blown out, but in which a little 
live spark still lingers; saying, as he does so — 


“Petit bonhomme vit encore !’ 


PETER IBBETSON. 


361 


And he, in whose hand the spark becomes extinct, 
has to pay forfeit and retire — ‘‘Helas! petit bon- 
homme n’est plus ! . . . Pauv’ petit bonhomme !” 

Ever thus may a little live spark of your own 
individual consciousness, when the full, quick flame 
of your actual life here below is extinguished, be 
handed down mildly incandescent to your remotest 
posterity. May it never quite go out — it heed not ! 
May you ever be able to say of yourself, from gen- 
eration to generation, “Petit bonhomme vit encore !” 
and still keep one finger at least in the pleasant 
earthly pie ! 

And, reader, remember so to order your life on 
earth that the memory of you (like that of Gatienne, 
la belle Yerriere de Yerny le Moustier) may smell 
sweet and blossom in the dust — a memory pleasant 
to recall — to this end that its recallings and its re- 
callers may be as numerous as filial love and ances- 
tral pride can make them. . . . 

And oh ! looking backward (as we did), be tender 
to the failings of your forbears, who little guessed 
when alive that the secrets of their long buried 
hearts should one day be revealed to you ! Their 
faults are really your own, like the faults of your 
innocent, ignorant childhood, so to say, when you 
did not know better, as you do now ; or will soon, 
thanks to 

“Le Chant du Triste Commensal I” 

Wherefore, also, beware and be warned in time, 
ye tenth transmitters of a foolish face, ye reckless 


362 


PETER IBBETSON. 


begetters of diseased or puny bodies, with hearts 
and brains to match ! Far down the corridors of 
time shall club-footed retribution follow in your 
footsteps, and overtake you at every turn ! Most 
remorselessly, most vindictively, will you be aroused, 
in sleepless hours of unbearable misery (future-wak- 
ing nightmares), from your false, uneasy dream of 
death ; to participate in an inheritance of woe still 
worse than yours — worse with all the accumulated 
interest of long years and centuries of iniquitous 
self-indulgence, and poisoned by the sting of a self- 
reproach that shall never cease till the last of your 
tainted progeny dies out, and finds his true nirvana, 
and yours, in the dim, forgetful depths of inter- 
stellar space ! 


And here let me most conscientiously affirm that, 
partly from my keen sense of the solemnity of such 
an appeal, and the grave responsibility I take upon 
myself in making it ; but more especially in order 
to impress you, oh reader, with the full significance 
of this apocalyptic and somewhat minatory utter- 
ance (that it may haunt your finer sense during your 
midnight hours of introspective self-communion), I 
have done my best, my very best, to couch it in 
the obscurest and most unintelligible phraseology I 
could invent. If I have failed to do this, if I have 
unintentionally made any part of my meaning clear, 
if I have once deviated by mistake into what might 
almost appear hke sense — mere common-sense — it 


PETER IBBETSON. 


363 


is the fault of my half-French and wholly imperfect 
education. I am but a poor scribe ! 


Thus roughly have I tried to give an account of 
this, the most important of our joint discoveries in 
the strange new world revealed to us by chance. 
More than 'twenty years of our united lives have 
been devoted to the following out of this slender 
clew — with what surprising results will, I trust, be 
seen m subsequent volumes. 

We have not had time to attempt the unravel- 
ling of our English ancestry as well — the Grays, and 
the Desmonds, the Ibbetsons, and Biddulphs, etc. — 
which connects us with the past history of England. 
The farther we got back into France, the more fasci- 
nating it became, and the easier — and the more diffi- 
cult to leave. 

What an unexampled experience has been ours ! 
To think that we have seen — actually seen — de nos 
jpropres yeux vu — ISTapoleon Bonaparte himself, the 
arch -arbiter of the world, on the very pinnacle of 
his pride and power; in his little cocked hat and 
gray double-breasted overcoat, astride his white 
charger, with all his staff around him, just as he has 
been so often painted! Surely the most impressive, 
unforgettable, ineffaceable little figure in all modern 
history, and clothed in the most cunningly imagined 
make-up that ever theatrical costumier devised to 
catch the public eye and haunt the public memory 
for ages and ages yet to come ! 


364 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


It is a singularly new, piquant, and exciting sensa- 
tion to stare in person, and as in the present, at by- 
gone actualities, and be able to foretell the past and 
remember the future all in one ! 

To think that we have even beheld him before he 
was first consul — slim and pale, his lank hair dan- 
gling down his neck and cheeks, if possible more im- 
pressive still ! as innocent as a child of all that lay 
before him ! Europe at his feet — the throne — W ater- 
loo — St. Helena — the Iron English Duke — the pin- 
nacle turned into a pillory so soon ! 

“ O corse a cheveux plats, que la France etait belle 
Au soleil de Messidor 1” 


And Mirabeau and Kobespierre, and Danton and 
Marat and Charlotte Corday ! we have seen them 
too ; and Marie Antoinette and the fish- wives, and 
“the beautiful head of Lamballe” (on its pike!) . . . 
and watched the tumbrils go by to the Place du 
Carrousel, and gazed at the guillotine by moonlight 
— silent and terror-stricken, our very hearts in our 
mouths. ... 

And in the midst of it all, ridiculous stray memo- 
ries of Madame Tussaud would come stealing into 
our ghastly dream of blood and retribution, mixing 
up past and present and future in a manner not to 
be described, and making us smile through our tears 1 

Then we were present (several times 1) at the tak- 
ing of the Bastille, and indeed witnessed most of the 
stormy scenes of that stormy time, with our Carlyle 


PETER IBBETSON. 


365 


in our hands ; and often have we thought, and with 
many a hearty laugh, what fun it must be to write 
immortal histories, with never an eye-witness to con- 
tradict you ! 

And going further back we have haunted Ver- 
sailles in the days of its splendor, and drunk our fill 
of all the glories of the court of Louis XI Y. ! 

What imposing ceremonials, what stupendous 
royal functions have we not attended — where all 
the beauty, wit, and chivalry of France, prostrate 
with reverence and awe (as in the very presence of 
a god), did loyal homage to the greatest monarch 
this world has ever seen — while we sat by, on the 
very steps of his throne, as he solemnly gave out 
his royal command! and laughed aloud under his 
very nose — the shallow, silly, pompous little snob — 
and longed to pull it 1 and tried to disinfect his 
greasy, civet-scented, full-bottomed wig with whole- 
some whiffs from a nineteenth-century regalia ! 

Xothing of that foolish but fascinating period 
escaped us. Town, hamlet, river, forest, and field ; 
royal palace, princely castle, and starving peasants’ 
hut ; pulpit, stage, and salon ; port, camp, and mar- 
ket-place ; tribunal and university ; factory, shop, 
studio, smithy ; tavern and gambling-hell and den 
of thieves ; convent and jail, torture - chamber and 
gibbet-close, and what not all 1 

And at every successive step our once desponding, 
over -anxious, over - burdened latter-day souls have 
swelled with joy and pride and hope at the triumphs 
of our own day all along the line 1 Yea, even 


366 


PETER IBBETSON. 


though we have heard the illustrious Bossuet 
preach, and applauded Moliere in one of his own 
plays, and gazed at and listened to (and almost for- 
given) Eacine and Corneille, and Boileau and Fene- 
lon, and the good Lafontaine — those five ruthless 
persecutors of our own innocent French childhood! 

And still ascending the stream of time, we have 
hobnobbed with Montaigne and Eabelais, and been 
personally bored by Malherbe, and sat at Konsard’s 
feet, and ridden by Froissart’s side, and slummed 
with FrauQois Yillon — in what enchanted slums 1 . . . 

Fran9ois Yillon ! Think of that, ye fond British 
bards and bardlets of to-day — ye would-be transla- 
tors and imitators of that never -to -be -translated, 
never-to-be-imitated lament, the immortal Ballade 
des Dames du Temps jadis ! 

And while I speak of it, I may as well mention 
that we have seen them too, or some of them — those 
fair ladies he had never seen, and who had already 
melted away before his coming, like the snows of 
y ester year, les neiges d^antan ! Bertha, with the 
big feet ; Joan of Arc, the good Lorrainer (what 
would she think of her native province now I) ; the 
very learned Heloise, for love of whom one Peter 
Esbaillart, or Abelard (a more luckless Peter than 
even 1 1), suffered such cruel indignities at monkish 
hands; and that haughty, naughty queen, in her 
Tower of Eesle, 


“Qui coramanda que Biiridan 

Fut jecte en ung Sac en Seine. . , 


PETER IBBETSOK. 


367 


Yes, we have seen them with the eye, and heard 
them speak and sing, and scold and jest, and laugh 
and weep, and even pray! And I have sketched 
them, as you shall see some day, good reader ! And 
let me tell you that their beauty was by no means 
maddening: the standard of female loveliness has 
gone up, even in France 1 Even la ires sage Heidis 
was scarcely worth such a sacrifice as— but there 1 
Possess your soul in patience ; all that, and it is all 
but endless, will appear in due time, with such de- 
scriptions and illustrations as I fiatter myself the 
world has never bargained for, and will value as it 
has never valued any historical records yet 1 

Day after day, for more than twenty years, Mary 
has kept a voluminous diary (in a cipher known to us 
both) ; it is now my property, and in it every detail 
of our long journey into the past has been set down. 

Contemporaneously, day by day (during the lei- 
sure accorded to me by the kindness of Governor 

) I have drawn over again from memory the 

sketches of people and places I was able to make 
straight from nature during those wonderful nights 
at Magna sed Apta.” I can guarantee the cor- 
rectness of them, and the fidelity of the likenesses ; 
no doubt their execution leaves much to be desired. 

Both her task and mine (to the future publication 
of which this autobiography is but an introduction) 
have been performed with the minutest care and 
conscientiousness; no time or trouble have been 
spared. For instance, the Massacre of St. Bartholo- 
mew alone, which we were able to study from sev- 


368 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


enteen different points of view, cost us no less than 
two months’ unremitting labor. 

As we reached further and further back through 
the stream of time, the task became easier in a way ; 
but we have had to generalize more, and often, for 
want of time and space, to use types in lieu of indi- 
viduals. For with every successive generation the 
number of our progenitors increased in geometrical 
progression (as in the problem of the nails in the 
horseshoe) until a limit of numbers was reached — 
namely, the sum of the inhabitants of the terrestrial 
globe. In the seventh century there was not a per- 
son living in France (not to mention Europe) who 
was not in the line of our direct ancestry, excepting, 
of course, those who had died without issue and were 
mere collaterals. 

We have even just been able to see, as in a glass 
darkly, the faint shadows of the Mammoth and the 
cave bear, and of the man who hunted and killed 
and ate them, that he might live and prevail. 

The Mammoth ! 

We have walked round him and under him as he 
browsed, and even through him where he lay and 
rested, as one walks through the dun mist in a little 
hollow on a still, damp morning ; and turning round 
to look (at the proper distance) there was the un- 
mistakable shape again, just thick enough to blot out 
the lines of the dim primeval landscape beyond, and 
make a hole in the blank sky. A dread silhouette, 
thrilling our hearts with awe — blurred and indistinct 
like a composite photograph — merely the tyjpey as it 



“ THE MAMMOTH !” 


had been seen generally by all who had ever seen it 
at all, every one of whom {exceptis exoipiendis) was 
necessarily an ancestor of ours, and of every man 
now living. 

There it stood or reclined, the monster, like the 
phantom of an overgrown hairy elephant ; we could 
almost see, or fancy we saw, the expression of his 
dull, cold, antediluvian eye — almost perceive a sug- 
gestion of russet-brown in his fell. 

Mary firmly believed that we should have got in 
time to our hairy ancestor with pointed ears and a 
tail, and have been able to ascertain whether he was 
arboreal in his habits or not. With what passionate 
interest she would have followed and studied and 
described him ! And I ! With what eager joy, and 
24 


370 


PETER IBBETSON. 


yet with what filial reverence, I would have sketched 
his likeness — with what conscientious fidelity as far 
as my poor powers would allow ! (For all we know 
to the contrary he may have been the most attract- 
ive and engaging little beast that ever was, and far 
less humiliating to descend from than many a titled 
yahoo of the present day.) 

Fate, alas, has willed that it should be otherwise, 
and on others, duly trained, must devolve the de- 
lightful task of following up the clew we have been 
so fortunate as to discover. 


And now the time has come for me to tell as 
quickly as I may the story of my bereavement — a 
bereavement so immense that no man, living or dead, 
can ever have experienced the like ; and to explain 
how it is that I have not only survived it and kept 
my wits (which some people seem to doubt), but 
am here calmly and cheerfully writing my reminis- 
cences, just as if I were a famous Academician, act- 
or, novelist, statesman, or general diner-out — bland- 
ly garrulous and well-satisfied with myself and the 
world. 

During the latter years of our joint existence 
Mary and I, engrossed by our fascinating journey 
through the centuries, had seen little or nothing of 
each other’s outer lives, or rather I had seen nothing 
of hers (for she still came back sometimes with me 
to my jail) ; I only saw her as she chose to appear 
in our dream. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


371 


Perhaps at the bottom of this there may have 
been a feminine dislike on her part to be seen 
growing older, for at “Magna sed Apta” we were 
always twenty -eight or thereabouts — at our very 
best. We had truly discovered the fountain of per- 
ennial youth, and had drunk thereof ! And in our 
dream we always felt even younger than we looked ; 
we had the buoyancy of children and their fresh- 
ness. 

Often had we talked of death and separation and 
the mystery beyond, but only as people do for whom 
such contingencies are remote; yet in reality time 
flew as rapidly for us as for others, although we 
were less sensible of its flight. 

There came a day when Mary’s exuberant vital- 
ity, so constantly overtaxed, broke down, and she 
was ill for a while ; although that did not prevent 
our meeting as usual, and there was no perceptible 
difference in her when we met. But I am certain 
that in reality she was never quite the same again 
as she had been, and the dread possibility of parting 
any day would come up oftener in our talk ; in our 
minds, only too often, and our minds were as one. 

She knew that if I died first, everything I had 
brought into “Magna sed Apta” (and little it was) 
would be there no more ; even to my body, ever ly- 
ing supine on the couch by the enchanted window, 
if she had woke by chance to our common life be- 
fore I had, or remained after I had been summoned 
away to my jail. 

And I knew that, if she died, not only her body 


373 


PETER IBBETSON. 


on the adjacent couch, but all ‘‘ Magna sed Apta 
itself would melt away, and be as if it had never 
been, with its endless galleries and gardens and 
magic windows, and all the wonders it contained. 



WAITING. 


Sometimes I felt a hideous nervous dread, on sink- 
ing into sleep, lest I should find it was so, and the 
ever-heavenly delight of waking there, and finding 
all as usual, was but the keener. I would kneel by 
her inanimate body, and gaze at her with a passion 
of love that seemed made up of all the different 
kinds of love a human being can feel ; even the love 
of a dog for his mistress was in it, and that of a 
wild beast for its young. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


373 


With eager, tremulous anxiety and aching sus« 
pense I would watch for the first light breath from 
her lips, the first faint tinge of carmine in her cheek, 
that always heralded her coming back to life. And 
when she opened her eyes and smiled, and stretched 
her long young limbs in the joy of waking, what 
transports of gratitude and relief ! 

Ah me ! the recollection 1 


At last a terrible unforgettable night arrived when 
my presentiment was fulfilled. 

I awoke in the little lumber-room of Parva sed 
Apta,” where the door had always been that led to 
and from our palace of delight ; but there was no 
door any longer — nothing but a blank wall. . . . 

I woke back at once in my cell, in such a state as 
it is impossible to describe. I felt there must be 
some mistake, and after much time and effort was 
able to sink into sleep again, but with the same re- 
sult : the blank wall, the certainty that “ Magna sed 
Apta’’ was closed forever, that Mary was dead ; and 
then the terrible jump back into my prison life again. 

This happened several times during the night, and 
when the morning dawned I was a raving madman. 
I took the warder who first came (attracted by my 
cries of “ Mary !’’) for Colonel Ibbetson, and tried to 
kill him, and should have done so, but that he was 
a very big man, almost as powerful as myself and 
only half my age. 

Other warders came to the rescue, and I took them 


374 


PETER IBBETSON. 


all for Ibbetsons, and fought like the maniac I was. 

When I came to myself, after long horrors and 
brain-fever and what not, I was removed from the 
jail infirmary to another place, where I am now. 

I had suddenly recovered my reason, and woke to 
mental agony such as I, who had stood in the dock 
and been condemned to a shameful death, had never 
even dreamed of. 

I soon had the knowledge of my loss confirmed, 
and heard (it had been common talk for more than 
nine days) that the famous Mary, Duchess of Tow- 
ers, had met her death at the station of the 

Metropolitan Kailway. 

A woman, carrying a child, had been jostled by a 
tipsy man just as a train was entering the station, 
and dropped her child onto the metals. She tried 
to jump after it but was held back, and Mary, who 
had just come up, jumped in her stead, and by a mir- 
acle of strength and agility was just able to clutch 
the child and get onto the six-foot way as the en- 
gine came by. 

She was able to carry the child to the end of the 
train, and was helped onto 'the platform. It was 
her train, and she got into a carriage, but she was 
dead before it reached the next station. Her heart 
(which, it seems, had been diseased for some time) 
had stopped, and all was over. 

So died Mary Seraskier, at fifty-three. 


I lay for many weeks convalescent in body, but 


PETER IBBETSON. 


875 


in a state of dumb, dry, tearless despair, to which 
there never came a moment’s relief, except in the 
dreamless sleep I got from chloral, which was given 
to me in large quantities — and then, the waking ! 

I never spoke nor answered a question, and hard- 
ly ever stirred. I had one fixed idea — that of self- 
destruction ; and after two unsuccessful attempts, I 
was so closely bound and watched night and day 
that any further attempt was impossible. They 
would not trust me with a toothpick or a button or 
a piece of common packthread. 

I tried to starve myself to death and refused all 
solid food; but an intolerable thirst (perhaps arti- 
ficially brought on) made it impossible for me to 
refuse any liquid that was offered, and I was tempt- 
ed with milk, beef -tea, port, and sherry, and these 
kept me alive. . . . 


I had lost all wish to dream. 

At length, one afternoon, a strange, inexplicable, 
overwhelming nostalgic desire came over me to see 
once more the Mare d’Auteuil— only once ; to walk 
thither for the last time through the Chaussee de 
la Muette, and by the fortifications. 

It grew upon me till it became a torture to wait 
for bedtime, so frantic was my impatience. 

When the long-wished-for hour arrived at last, I 
laid myself down once more (as nearly as I could 
for my bonds) in the old position I had not tried 
for so long; my will intent upon the Porte de la 


376 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Muette, an old stone gate-way that separated the 
Grande Eue de Passy from the entrance to the 
Bois de Boulogne — a kind of Temple Bar. 

It was pulled down forty-five years ago. 

I soon found myself there, just where the Grande 
Eue meets the Eue de la Pompe, and went through 
the arch and looked towards the Bois. 

It was a dull, leaden day in autumn ; few people 
were about, but a gay rejpas de noces was being held 
at a little restaurant on my right-hand side. It 
was to celebrate the wedding of Achille Grigoux, 
the green - grocer, with Felicite Lenormand, who 
had been the Seraskiers’ house-maid. I suddenly 
remembered all this, and that Mimsey and Gogo 
were of the party — the latter, indeed, h&mg premier 
gargon d^honneur^ on whom would soon devolve the 
duty of stealing the bride’s garter, and cutting it 
up into little bits to adorn the button-holes of the 
male guests before the ball began. 

In an archway on my left some forlorn, worn-out 
old rips, broken -kneed and broken - winded, were 
patiently waiting, ready saddled and bridled, to be 
hired — Chloris, Murat, Eigolette, and others : I 
knew and had ridden them all nearly half a cen- 
tury ago. Poor old shadows of the long-dead past, 
so life-like and real and pathetic — it “ split me the 
heart ” to see them ! 

A handsome young blue -coated, silver -buttoned 
courier of the name of Lami came trotting along 
from St. Cloud on a roan horse, with a great jing- 
ling of his horse’s bells and clacking of his short- 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


377 


handled whip. He stopped at the restaurant and 
called for a glass of white wine, and rising in his 
stirrups, shouted gayly for Monsieur et Madame 
Grigoux. They appeared at the lirst-floor window, 
looking very happy, and he drank their health, .and 
they his. I could see Gogo and Mimsey in the 
crowd behind them, and mildly wondered again, as 
I had so often wondered before, how I came to see 
it all from the outside — from another point of view 
than Gogo’s. 

Then the courier bowed gallantly, and said, 
Bonne chance and went trotting down the 
Grande Rue on his way to the Tuileries, and the 
wedding guests began to sing : they sang a song be- 
ginning — 

“II etait un petit navire, 

Qui n’avait jamais navigue. . . .’* 

I had quite forgotten it, and listened till the end, 
and thought it very pretty ; and was interested in a 
dull, mechanical way at discovering that it must be 
the original of Thackeray’s famous ballad of “ Little 
Billee,” which I did not hear till many years after. 

When they came to the last verse — 

“Si cette histoire vous emb6te, 

Nous aliens la recommencer,” 

I went on my way. This was my last walk in 
dream-land, perhaps, and dream -hours are uncer- 
tain, and I would make the most of them, and look 
about me. 


378 


PETER IBBETSON. 


I walked towards Eanelagh, a kind of casino, 
where they used to give balls and theatrical per- 
formances on Sunday and Thursday nights (and 
where afterwards Kossini spent the latter years of 
his life ; then it was pulled down, I am told, to 
make room for many smart little villas). 

In the meadow opposite M. Erard’s park, Sain- 
dou’s school-boys were playing rounders — la halle 
au camp — from which I concluded it was a Thurs- 
day afternoon, a half -holiday ; if they had had clean 
shirts on (which they had not) it would have been 
Sunday, and the holiday a whole one. 

I knew them all, and the two pions, or ushers, M. 
Lartigue and le petit Cazal ; but no longer cared 
for them or found them amusing or interesting in 
the least. 

Opposite the Eanelagh a few old hackney-coach- 
men were pacifically killing time by a game of hou- 
cTion — knocking sous off a cork with other sous — 
great fat sous and double sous long gone out of fash- 
ion. It is a very good game, and I watched it for 
a while, and envied the long-dead players. 

Close by was a small wooden shed, or haraque, 
prettily painted and glazed, and ornamented at the 
top with little tricolor fiags ; it belonged to a couple 
of old ladies. Mere Manette and Grandmere Ma^ 
nette — the two oldest women ever seen. They were 
very keen about business, and would not give credit 
for a centime — not even to English boys. They 
were said to be immensely rich and quite alone in 
the world. How very dead they must be now! 



1 




380 


PETER IBBETSON. 


I thought. And I gazed at them and wondered at 
their liveliness and the pleasure they took in living. 
They sold many things : nougat, jpain d'^epices^ mir- 
litons, hoops, drums, noisy battledoors and shuttle- 
cocks ; and little ten-sou hand-mirrors, neatly bound 
in zinc, that could open and shut. 

I looked at myself in oue of these that was hang- 
ing outside; I was old and worn and gray — my 
face badly shaven — my hair almost white. I had 
never been old in a dream before. 

I walked through the gate in the fortifications on 
to the outer Talus (which was quite bare in those 
days), in the direction of the Mare d’Auteuil. The 
place seemed very deserted and dull for a Thursday. 
It was a sad and sober walk ; my melancholy was 
not to be borne — my heart was utterly broken, and 
my body so tired I could scarcely drag myself 
along. I^ever before had I known in a dream what 
it was to be tired. 

I gazed at the famous fortifications in all their 
brand-new pinkness, the scaffoldings barely removed 
— some of them still lying in the dry ditch between 
— and smiled to think how little these brick and 
granite walls would avail to keep the Germans out 
of Paris thirty years later (twenty years ago). I 
tried to throw a stone across a narrow part, and 
found I could no longer throw stones ; so I sat 
down and rested. How thin my legs were! and 
how miserably clad — in old prison trousers, greasy, 
stained, and frayed, and ignobly kneed — and what 
boots ! 


PETER IBBETSON. 


381 


Kever had I been shabby in a dream before. 

Why could not I, once for all, walk round to the 
other side, and take a header d la hussar de off those 
lofty bulwarks, and kill myself for good and all? 
Alas ! I should only blur the dream, and perhaps 
even wake in my miserable strait-waistcoat. And 
I wanted to see the mare once more, very badly. 

This set me thinking. I would fill my pockets; 



“l SAT DOWN AND RESTED.” 


with stones, and throw myself into the Mare d’Au- 
teuil after I had taken a last good look at it, and' 
around. Perhaps the shock of emotion, in my pres- 


382 


PETER IBBETSON. 


ent state of weakness, might really kill me in my 
sleep. Who knows ? it was worth trying, anyhow. 

I got up and dragged myself to the mare. It was 
deserted but for one solitary female figure, soberly 
clad in black and gray, that sat motionless on the 
bench by the old willow. 

I walked slowly round in her direction, picking 
up stones and putting them into my pockets, and 
saw that she was gray-haired and middle-aged, with 
very dark eyebrows, and extremely tall, and that 
her magnificent eyes were following me. 

Then, as I drew nearer, she smiled and showed 
gleaming white teeth, and her eyes crinkled and 
nearly closed up as she did so. 

‘‘Oh, my God!” I shrieked; “ it is Mary Seraskier 1” 


I ran to her — I threw myself at her feet, and 
buried my face in her lap, and there I sobbed like a 
hysterical child, while she tried to soothe me as one 
soothes a child. 

After a while I looked up into her face. It was 
old and worn and gray, and her hair nearly white, 
like mine. I had never seen her like that before ; 
she had always been eight- and-twenty. But age 
became her well — she looked so benignly beautiful 
and calm and grand that I was awed — and quick, 
chill waves went down my backbone. 

Her dress and bonnet were old and shabby ; her 
gloves had been mended — old kid gloves with fur 
about the wrists. She drew them off, and took my 


PETER IBBETSOJT. 


hands and made me sit beside her, and looked at me 
for a while with all her might in silence. 

At length she said : “ Gogo mio, I know all you 
have been through by the touch of your hands. 
Does the touch of mine tell you nothing 

It told me nothing but her huge love for me, 
which was all I cared for, and I said so. 

She sighed, and said : ‘‘ I was afraid it would be 
like this. The old circuit is broken, and can’t be 
restored — not yet !” 

We tried again hard ; but it was useless. 

She looked round and about and up at the tree- 
tops, everywhere ; and then at me again, with great 
wistfulness, and shivered, and finally began to speak; 
with hesitation at first, and in a manner foreign to 
her. But soon she became apparently herself, and 
found her old swift smile and laugh, her happy 
slight shrugs and gestures, and quaint polyglot col- 
loquialisms (which I omit, as I cannot always spell 
them) ; her homely, simple ways of speech, her flu- 
ent, magnetic energy, the winning and sympathetic 
modulations of her voice, its quick humorous changes 
from grave to gay — all that made everything she 
said so suggestive of all she wanted to say besides. 

‘‘ Gogo, I knew you would come. I wished it ! 
How dreadfully you have suffered ! How thin you 
are ! It shocks me to see you ! But that will not 
be any more ; we are going to change all that. 

Gogo, you have no idea how difficult it has been 
for me to come back, even for a few short hours, for 
I can’t hold on very long. It is like hanging on to 


384 


PETER IBBETSON. 


the window-sill by one’s wrists. This time it is 
Hero swimming to Leander, or Juliet climbing up 
to Komeo. 

“ ISTobody has ever come back before. 

I am but a poor husk of my former self, put 
together at great pains for you to know me by. I 
could not make myself again what I have always 
been to you. I had to be content with this, and so 
must you. These are the clothes I died in. But 
you knew me directly, dear Gogo. 

“ I have come a long way — such a long way — to 
have an dbboccamento with you. I had so many 
things to say. And now we are both here, hand in 
hand as we used to be, I can’t even understand 
what they were; and if I could, I couldn’t make you 
understand. But you will know some day, and 
there is no hurry whatever. 

“ Every thought you have had since I died, I know 
already; your share of the circuit is unbroken at 
least. I know now why you picked up those stones 
and put them in your pockets. You must never 
think of that again — you never will. Besides, it 
would be of no use, poor Gogo !” 

Then she looked up at the sky and all round her 
again, and smiled in her old happy manner, and 
rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands, and 
seemed to settle herself for a good long talk — an 
dbboccamento ! 


Of all she said I can only give a few fragments — 


PETER IBBETSON. 385 

whatever I can recall and understand when awake. 
Wherever I have forgotten I will put a line of little 
dots. Only when I sleep and dream can I recall 
and understand the rest. It seems all very simple 
then. I often say to myself, I will fix it well in 
my mind, and put it into well-chosen words — her ^ 
words — and learn them by heart ; and then wake 
cautiously and remember them, and write them all 
down in a book, so that they shall do for others all 



386 


FETEE IBBETSON. 


they have done for me, and turn doubt into happy 
certainty, and despair into patience and hope and 
high elation.” 

But the bell rings and I wake, and my memory 
plays me false. ITothing remains but the knowledge 
that all will he well for us all, omd of such a hind that 
those who do not sigh for the moon will he well con- 
tent. 

Alas, this knowledge : I cannot impart it to others. 
Like many who have lived before me, I cannot prove 
— I can only affirm. . . . 


“ How odd and old-fashioned it feels,” she began, 
to have eyes and ears again, and all that — little 
open windows on to what is near us. They are 
very clumsy contrivances! I had already forgot^ 
ten them. 


“ Look, there goes our old friend, the water-rat, 
under the bank — the old fat father — le hon gros pere 
— as we used to call him. He is only a little flat 
picture moving upsidedown in the opposite direc. 
tion across the backs of our eyes, and the farther he 
goes the smaller he seems. A couple of hundred 
yards off we shouldn’t see him at all. As it is, we 
can only see the outside of him, and that only on 
one side at a time ; and yet he is full of important 
and wonderful things that have taken millions of 
years to make — like us ! And to see him at all we 


PETER IBBETSON. 


887 


have to look straight at him — and then we can’t see 
what’s behind us or around — and if it was dark we 
couldn’t see anything whatever. 

“ Poor eyes ! Little bags full of water, with a 
little magnifying-glass inside, and a nasturtium leaf 
behind — to catch the light and feel it ! 

“ A celebrated German oculist once told papa that 
if his instrument-maker were to send him such an 
ill-made machine as a human eye, he would send it 
back and refuse to pay the bill. I can understand 
that now; and yet on earth where should we be 
without eyes ? And afterwards where should we be 
if some of us hadn’t once had them on earth ? 


‘‘I can hear your dear voice, Gogo, with both 
ears. Why two ears ? Why only two ? What you 
want, or think, or feel, you try to tell me in sounds 
that you have been taught — English, French. If I 
didn’t know English and French, it would be no 
good whatever. Language is a poor thing. You 
fill your lungs with wind and shake a little slit in 
your throat, and make mouths, and that shakes the 
air ; and the air shakes a pair of little drums in my 
head — a very complicated arrangement, with lots of 
bones behind — and my brain seizes your meaning in 
the rough. What a roundabout way, and what a 
waste of time ! 


“And so with all the rest. We can’t even smell 


388 


PETER IBBETSON. 


straight ! A dog would laugh at us — not that even 
a dog knows much ! 

“And feeling! We can feel too hot or too cold, 
and it sometimes makes us ill, or even kills us. But 
we can’t feel the coming storm, or which is north 
and south, or where the new moon is, or the sun 
at midnight, or the stars at noon, or even what 
o’clock it is by our own measurement. We cannot 
even find our way home blindfolded — not even a 
pigeon can do that, nor a swallow, nor an owl! 
Only a mole, or a blind man, perhaps, feebly grop- 
ing with a stick, if he has already been that way 
before. 

“ And taste ! It is well said there is no account- 
ing for it. 

“And then, to keep all this going, we have to 
eat, and drink, and sleep, and all the rest. What 
a burden ! 


“And you and I are the only mortals that I 
know of who ever found a way to each other’s 
inner being by the touch of the hands. And then 
we had to go to sleep first. Our bodies were miles 
apart ; not that that would have made any differ- 
ence, for we could never have done it waking — nev- 
er ; not if we hugged each other to extinction ! 


“ Gogo, I cannot find any words to tell you how^ 
for there are none in any language that /ever knew 


PETER IBBETSON. 


389 


to tell it ; but where I am it is all ear and eye and 
the rest in one^ and there is, oh, how much more 
besides ! Things a homing-pigeon has known, and 
an ant, and a mole, and a water-beetle, and an earth- 
worm, and a leaf, and a root, and a magnet — even a 
lump of chalk, and more. One can see and smell 
and touch and taste a sound, as well as hear it, and 
mce versa. It is very simple, though it may not 
seem so to you now. 

“ And the sounds ! Ah, what sounds ! The thick 
atmosphere of earth is no conductor for such as they, 
and earthly ear-drums no receiver. Sound is every- 
thing. Sound and light are one. 


And what does it all mean ? 

“ I knew what it meant when I was there — part 
of it, at least — and should know again in a few 
hours. But this poor old earth-brain of mine, which 
I have had to put on once more as an old woman 
puts on a nightcap, is like my eyes and ears. It can 
now only understand what is of the earth — what 
you can understand, Gogo, who are still of the earth. 
I forget, as one forgets an ordinary dream, as one 
sometimes forgets the answer to a riddle, or the last 
verse of a song. It is on the tip of the tongue ; but 
there it sticks, and won’t come any farther. 

“ Bemember, it is only in your brain I am living 
now — your earthly brain, that has been my only 
borne for so many happy years, as mine has been 
yours. 


390 


PETER IBBETSON. 


“ How we have nestled ! 


‘‘ But this I know : one must have had them all 
once — brains, ears, eyes, and the rest — on earth. ‘ II 
faut avoir passe par la!’ or no after -existence for 
man or beast would be possible or even conceivable. 

‘‘ One cannot teach a born deaf-mute how to un- 
derstand a musical score, nor a born blind man how 
to feel color. To Beethoven, who had once heard 
with the ear, his deafness made no difference, nor 
their blindness to Homer and Milton. 

“ Can you make out my little parable ? 


“ Sound and light and heat, and electricity and 
motion, and will and thought and remembrance, 
and love and hate and pity, and the desire to be 
born and to live, and the longing of all things alive 
and dead to get near each other, or to fly apart — 
and lots of other things besides ! All that comes to 
the same — ‘ C’est comme qui dirait bonnet blanc et 
blanc bonnet,’ as Monsieur le Major used to say. 
‘ C’est simple comme bonjour 1’ 

‘‘ Where I am, Gogo, I can hear the sun shining 
on the earth and making the flowers blow, and the 
birds sing, and the bells peal for birth and marriage 
and death — happy, happy death, if you only knew 
— ‘ C’est la clef des champs !’ 

“ It shines on moons and planets, and I can hear 
it, and hear the echo they give back again. The 


PETER IBBETSON. 


391 


very stars are singing ; rather a long way off ! but 
it is well worth their while with such an audience 
as lies between us and them ; and they can’t help 

it. . . . 

“ I can’t hear it here — not a bit — now that I’ve 
got my ears on ; besides, the winds of the earth are 
too loud. . . . 

“ Ah, that is music, if you like ; but men and 
women are stone-deaf to it — their ears are in the 
way ! . . . 

“ Those poor unseen flat flsh that live in the dark- 
ness and mud at the bottom of deep seas can’t catch 
the music men and women make upon the earth — 
such poor music as it is! But if ever so faint a 
murmur, borne on the wings and fins of a sunbeam, 
reaches them for a few minutes at mid-day, and 
they have a speck of marrow in their spines to feel 
it, and^ no ears or eyes to come between, they are 
better off than any man, Gogo. Their dull exist- 
ence is more blessed than his. 

“ But alas for them, as yet ! They haven’t got 
the memory of the eye and ear, and without that 
no speck of spinal marrow will avail ; they must be 
content to wait, like you. ... . 

“ The blind and deaf ? 

“ Oh yes ; Id-has, it is all right for the poor deaf- 
mutes and born blind of the earth; they can re- 
member with the past eyes and ears of all the rest. 
Besides, it is no longer they. There is no they / 
That is only a detail. 


392 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


“You must try and realize that it is just as though 
all space between us and the sun and stars were full 
of little specks of spinal marrow, much too small to 
be seen in any microscope — smaller than anything 
in the world. All space is full of them, shoulder to 
shoulder — almost as close as sardines in a box — and 
there is still room for more ! Yet a single drop of 
water would hold them all, and not be the less trans- 
parent. They all remember having been alive on 
earth or elsewhere, in some form or other, and each 
knows all the others remember. I can only com- 
pare it to that. 

“ Once all that space was only full of stones, rush- 
ing, whirling, meeting, and crushing together, and 
melting and steaming in the white -heat of their 
own hurry. But now there’s a crop of something 
better than stones, I can promise you ! It goes on 
gathering, and being garnered and mingled and 
sifted and winnowed — the precious, indestructible 
harvest of how many millions of years of life ! 


“ And this I know : the longer and more strenu- 
ously and completely one lives one’s life on earth 
the better for all. It is the foundation of every- 
thing. Though if men could guess what is in store 
for them when they die, without also knowing that, 
they would not have the patience to live — they 
wouldn’t wait ! For who would fardels bear ? They 
would just put stones in their pockets, as you did, 
and make for the nearest pond. 


PETER IBBETSON. 


393 


“ They mustn’t ! 


“ ISTothing is lost — nothing ! From the ineffable, 
high, fleeting thought a Shakespeare can’t find 
words to express, to the slightest sensation of an 
earthworm — nothing! Not a leaf’s feeling of the 
light, not a loadstone’s sense of the pole, not a sin- 
gle volcanic or electric thrill of the mother earth. 

All knowledge must begin on earth for us. It 
is the most favored planet in this poor system of 
ours just now, and for a few short millions of years 
to come. There are just a couple of others, perhaps 
three ; but they are not of great consequence. ‘ II y 
fait trop chaud — ou pas assez 1’ They are failures. 

“ The sun, the father sun, le hon gros phre, rains 
life on to the mother earth. A poor little life it 
was at first, as you know — grasses and moss, and 
little wriggling, transparent things — all stomach ; it 
is quite true I That is what we come from — Shakes- 
peare, and you, and I ! 


After each individual death the earth retains 
each individual clay to be used again and again ; and, 
as far as I can see, it rains back each individual es- 
sence to the sun — or somewhere near it — like a pre- 
cious water-drop returned to the sea, where it min- 
gles, after having been about and seen something of 
the world, and learned the use of five small wits — 
and remembering all! Yes, like that poor little 


394 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


exiled wandering water-drop in the pretty song your 
father used to sing, and which always manages to 
find its home at last — 

“ ‘ Va passaggier’ in flume, 

Va prigionier’ in fonte, 

Ma sempre ritorn’ al mar/ 


“ Or else it is as if little grains of salt were betng 
showered into the Mare d’Auteuil, to melt and min- 
gle with the water and each other till the Mare 
d’Auteuil itself was as salt as salt can be. 

‘‘ Not till that Mare d’Auteuil of the sun is sat- 
urated with the salt of the earth, of earthly life and 
knowledge, will the purpose be complete, and then 
old mother earth may well dry up into a cinder 
like the moon ; its occupation will be gone, like hers 
— ‘ adieu, panier, les vendanges sont faites !’ 

“ And as for the sun and its surrounding ocean of 
life — ah, that is beyond me! but the sun will dry 
up, too, and its ocean of life no doubt be drawn to 
other greater suns. For everything seems to go on 
more or less in the same way, only crescendo, every- 
where and forever. 


“ You must understand that it is not a bit like an 
ocean, nor a bit like water-drops, or grains of salt, 
or specks of spinal marrow ; but it is only by such 
poor metaphors that I can give you a glimpse of 
what I mean, since you can no longer understand 


PETER IBBETSON. 


395 


me, as you used to do on earthly things, by the 
mere touch of our hands. 


“ Gogo, I am the only little water-drop, the one 
grain of salt that has not yet been able to dissolve 
and melt away in that universal sea ; I am the ex- 
ception. 

“ It is as though a long, invisible chain bound me 
still to the earth, and I were hung at the other end 
of it in a little transparent locket, a kind of cage, 
which lets me see and hear things all round, but 
keeps me from melting away. 

“ And soon I found that this locket was made of 
that half of you that is still in me, so that I couldn’t 
dissolve, because half of me wasn’t dead at all ; for 
the chain linked me to that half of myself I had left 
in you, so that half of me actually wasn’t there to 
be dissolved. ... I am getting rather mixed ! 

“ But oh, my heart’s true love, how I hugged my 
chain, with you at the other end of it ! 

“With such pain and effort as you cannot con- 
ceive, I have crept along it back to you, like a spider 
on an endless thread of its own spinning. Such love 
as mine is stronger than death indeed ! 


“ I have come to tell you that we are inseparable 
forever, you and I, one double speck of spinal mar- 
row — ‘Philipschen!’ — one little grain of salt, one 
drop. There is to be no parting for us — I can see 


396 


PETER IBBETSON. 


that; but such extraordinary luck seems reserved 
for you and me alone up to now ; and it is all our 
own doing. ^ 

But not till you join me shall you and I be com-^ 
plete, and free to melt away in that universal ocean, 
and take our part, as One, in all that is to be. 

‘‘That moment — you must not hasten it by a 
moment. Time is nothing. I’m even beginning to 
believe there’s no such thing; there is so little differ- 
ence, Id-bas^ between a year and a day. And as for 
space — dear me, an inch is as good as an ell ! 

“ Things cannot be measured like that. 

“A midge’s life is as long as a man’s, for it has 
time to learn its business, and do all the harm it can, 
and fight, and make love, and marry, and reproduce 
its kind, and grow disenchanted and bored and sick 
and content to die — all in a summer afternoon. An 
average man can live to seventy years without do- 
ing much more. 

“And then there are tall midges, and clever and 
good-looking ones, and midges of great personal 
strength and cunning, who can fly a little faster and 
a little farther than the rest, and live an hour longer 
to drink a whole drop more of some other creature’s 
blood ; but it does not make a very great difference ! 

“No, time' and space mean just the same as 
‘ nothing.’ 

“ But for you they mean much, as you have much 
to do. Our joint life must be revealed — that long, 
sweet life of make-believe, that has been so much 


PETER iBBETSON. 


397 


more real than reality. Ah ! where and what were 
time or space to us then ? 


“And you must tell all we have found out, and 
how ; the way must be shown to others with better 
brains and better training than we had. The value 
to mankind — to mankind here and hereafter — may 
be incalculable. 


“ For some day, when all is found out that can be 
found out on earth, and made the common property 
of all (or even before that), the great man will per- 
haps arise and make the great guess that is to set us 
all free, here and hereafter. Who knows ? 

“ I feel this splendid guesser will be some inspired 
musician of the future, as simple as a little child in 
all things but his knowledge of the power of sound ; 
but even little children will have learned much in 
those days. He will want new notes and find them 
— new notes between the black and white keys. He 
will go blind like Milton and Homer, and deaf like 
Beethoven; and then, all in the stillness and the 
dark, all in the depths of his forlorn and lonely soul, 
he will make his best music, and out of the endless 
mazes of its counterpoint he will evolve a secret, as 
we did from the ‘ Chant du Triste Commensal,’ but it 
will be a greater secret than ours. Others will have 
been very near this hidden treasure ; but he will hap- 
pen right on it, and unearth it, and bring it to light. 


398 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


“ I think I see him sitting at the key-board, so fa- 
miliar of old to the feel of his consummate lingers ; 
painfully dictating his score to some most patient 
and devoted friend — mother, sister, daughter, wife 
— that score that he will never see' or hear. 

“ What a stammerer ! N^ot only blind and deaf, 
but mad — mad in the world’s eyes, for fifty, a hun- 
dred, a thousand years. Time is nothing ; but that 
score will survive. . . . 

“ He will die of it, of course ; and when he dies 
and comes to us, there will be joy from here to 
Sirius, and beyond. 

And one day they will find out on earth that he 
was only deaf and blind — not mad at all. They will 
hear and understand — they will know that he saw 
and heard as none had ever heard or seen before ! 


‘‘ For ‘as we sow we reap that is a true saying, 
and all the sowing is done here on earth, and the 
reaping beyond. Man is a grub ; his dead clay, as 
he lies cofiined in his grave, is the left-off cocoon he 
has spun for himself during his earthly life, to burst 
open and soar from with all his memories about 
him, even his lost ones. Like the dragon-fly, the 
butterfly, the moth . . . and when they die it is the 
same, and the same with a blade of grass. We are 
all, tons tant que nous sommes^ little bags of remem- 
brance that never dies ; that’s what we’re /br. But 
we can only bring with us to the common stock 
what we’ve got. As Pere Fran9ois used to say, 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


399 


‘ La plus belle fille au monde ne peut donner que ce 
qu’elle a.’ 

“ Besides all this I am your earthly wife, Gogo — 
your loving, faithful, devoted wife, and I wish it to 
be known. 

“ And then at last, in the fulness of time — a very 
few years — ah, then — 

“ Once more shall I^euha lead her Torquil by the 
hand.’’ 

‘‘ Oh, Mary !” I cried, “ shall we be transcendently 
happy again ? As happy as we were — hajpjpier even ?” 

“ Ah, Gogo, is a man happier than a mouse, or a 
mouse than a turnip, or a turnip than a lump of 
chalk? But what man would be a mouse or a 
turnip, or mce versa f what turnip would be a lump 
— of anything but itself? , Are two people happier 
than one? You and I, yes; because we are one; 
but who else ? It is one and all. Happiness is like 
time and space — we make and measure it ourselves ; 
it is a fancy — as big, as little, as you please; just 
a thing of contrasts and comparisons, like health 
or strength or beauty or any other good — that 
wouldn’t even be noticed but for sad personal ex- 
perience of its opposite ! — or its greater ! 

“I have forgotten all I know but this, which is 
for you and me : we are inseparable forever. Be 
sure we shall not want to go back again for a mo- 
ment.” 


400 


PETER IBBETSON. 


“And is there no punishment or reward?’’ 

“ Oh, there again ! What a detail ! Poor little 
naughty perverse midges — who were 'born so — and 
ca7)^t keep straight! poor little exemplary midges 
who couldn’t go wrong if they tried I Is it worth 
while ? Isn’t it enough for either punishment or re- 
ward that the secrets of all midges’ hearts shall be 
revealed, and for all other midges to see? Think 
of it 1 

“ There are battles to be fought and races to be 
won, but no longer against ^each other And strength 
and swiftness to win them ; but no longer any strong 
and swift. There is weakness and cowardice, but no 
longer any cowards or weaklings. The good and 
the bad and the worst and the best — it is all mixed 
up. But the good comes to the top ; the bad goes 
to the bottom — it is precipitated, as papa used to 
say. It is not an agreeable sediment, with its once 
useful cruelty at the lowest bottom of all — out of 
sight, out of mind — all but forgotten. G^est dejd le 
del. 


“ And the goal ? The cause, the whither, and the 
why of it all? Ah! Gogo — as inscrutable, as un- 
thinkable as ever, till the great guesser comes ! At 
least so it seems to me, speaking as a fool, out of the 
depths of my poor ignorance ; for I am a new ar- 
rival, and a complete outsider, with my chain and 
locket, waiting for you. 

“ I have only picked up a few grains of sand on 


PETER IBBETSON. 


401 


the shore of that sea — a few little shells, and I can’t 
even show you what they are like. I see that it is 
no good even talking of it, alas ! And I had prom- 
ised myself so much. 

‘‘ Oh ! how my earthly education was neglected, 
and yours! and how I feel it now, with so much 
to say in words, mere words 1 Why, to tell you in 
words the little 1 can see, the very little — so that 
you could understand — would require that each of 
us should be the greatest poet and the greatest math- 
ematician that ever were, rolled into one 1 How I 
pity you, Gogo — with your untrained, unskilled, in- 
nocent pen, poor scribe! having to write all this 
down — for you must — and do your poor little best, 
as I have done mine in telling you ! You must let 
the heart speak, and not mind style or manner ! 
Write anyhow ! write for the greatest need and the 
greatest number. 

But do just try and see this, dearest, and make 
the best of it you can : as far as / can make it 
out, everything everywhere seems to be an ever- 
deepening, ever-broadening stream that makes with 
inconceivable velocity for its own proper level, 
WHERE PERFECTION IS ! . . . and ever gets nearer and 
nearer, and never finds it, and fortunately never 
will ! 

“ Only that, unlike an earthly stream, and more 
like a fresh flowing tide up an endless, boundless, 
shoreless creek (if you can imagine that), the level it 
seeks is immeasurably higher than its source. And 
everywhere in it is Life, Life, Life! ever renew- 
26 


402 


PETER IBBETSON. 


ing and doubling itself, and ever swelling that mighty 
river which has no banks ! 

“And everywhere in it like begets plus a 
little better or a little worse ; and the little worse 
finds its way into some backwater and sticks there, 
/and finally goes to the bottom, and nobody cares. 
And the little better goes on bettering and better- 
ing — not all man’s folly or perverseness can hinder 
that^ nor make that headlong torrent stay, or ebb, or 
roll backward for a moment — c'est plus fort que 
nous! . . . The record goes on beating itself, the 
high -water -mark gets higher and higher till the 
highest on earth is reached that can be — and then, 
I suppose, the earth grows cold and the sun goes 
out — to be broken up into bits, and used all over 
again, perhaps ! And betterness flies to warmer 
climes and huger systems, to better itself still ! And 
so on, from better to better, from higher to higher, 
from warmer to warmer, and bigger to bigger — for 
ever and ever and ever ! 

“ But the final superlative of all, absolute all-good- 
ness and all-highness, absolute all- wisdom, absolute 
omnipotence, beyond which there neither is nor can 
be anything more, will never be reached at all — 
since there are no such things ; they are abstractions ; 
besides which, attainment means rest, and rest stag- 
nation, and stagnation an end of all ! And there is 
no end, and never can be — no end to Time and all 
the things that are done in it — no end to Space and 
all the things that fiU it, or all would come together 
in a heap and smash up in the middle — and there is 


PETER IBBETSON. 


403 


no middle ! — no end, no beginning, no middle ! no 
middle^ Gogo ! think of that ! it is the most incon- 
ceivable thing of all ! ! ! 

‘‘ So who shall say where Shakespeare and you 
and I come in — tiny links in an endless chain, so 
tiny that even Shakespeare is no bigger than we ! 
And just a little way behind us, those little wrig- 
gling transparent things, all stomach, that we de- 
scend from ; and far ahead of ourselves, but in the 
direct line of a long descent from us^ an ever- 
growing conscious Power, so strong, so glad, so sim- 
ple, so wise, so mild, and so beneficent, that what 
can we do, even now, but fall on our knees with 
our foreheads in the dust, and our hearts brimful of 
wonder, hope, and love, and tender shivering awe ; 
and worship as a yet unborn, barely conceived, and 
scarce begotten Child — that which we have always 
been taught to worship as a Father — That which is 
not now, but is to be — That which we shall all 
share in and be part and parcel of in the dim future 
—That which is slowly, surely, painfully weaving 
Itself out of us and the likes of us all through the 
limitless Universe, and Whose coming we can but 
faintly foretell by the casting of its shadow on our 
own slowly, surely, painfully awakening souls !” 

Then she went on to speak of earthly things, and 
ask questions in her old practical way. First of my 
bodily health, with the tenderest solicitude and the 
wisest advice — as a mother to a son. She even in- 
sisted on listening to my heart, like a doctor. 


404 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Then she spoke at great length of the charities in 
which she had been interested, and gave me many 
directions which I was to write, as coming from my- 
self, to certain people whose names and addresses 
she impressed upon me with great care. 

I have done as she wished, and most of these di- 
rections have been followed to the letter, with no 
little wonder on the world’s part (as the world well 
knows) that such sagacious and useful reforms should 
have originated with the inmate of a criminal lu- 
natic asylum. 


At last the time came for us to part. She fore- 
saw that I should have to wake in a few minutes, 
and said, rising — 

“And now, Gogo, the best beloved that ever was 
on earth, take me once more in your dear arms, and 
kiss me good-bye for a little while — auf wiedersehen. 
Come here to rest and think and remember when 
your body sleeps. My spirit will always be here 
with you. I may even be able to come back again 
myself — just this poor husk of me — hardly more to 
look at than a bundle of old clothes; but yet a 
world made up of love for you. Good-bye, good- 
bye, dearest and best. Time is nothing, but I shall 
count the hours. Good-bye. . . 

Even as she strained me to her breast I awoke. 


I awoke, and knew that the dread black shadow 


PETER IBBETSON. 


405 


of melancholia had passed away from me like a 
hideous nightmare— like a long and horrible winter. 
My heart was full 
of the sunshine of 
spring — the glad- 
ness of awaking to 
a new life. 

I smiled at my 
night attendant, 
who stared back at 
me in astonishment, 
and exclaimed — 

“Why, sir, blest 
if you ain’t a new 
man altogether. 

There, now !” 

I wrung his hand, 
and thanked him 
for all his past pa- 
tience, kindness, 
and forbearance 
with such effusion 
that his eyes had 
tears in them. 1 
had not spoken for 
weeks, and he heard 
my voice for the 
first time. 

That day, also, without any preamble or explana- 
tion, I gave the doctor and the chaplain and the gov- 
ernor my word of honor that I would not attempt 





“good-bye!” 


406 


PETER IBBETSON. 


my life again, or any one else’s, and was believed 
and trusted on the spot ; and they unstrapped me. 

I was never so touched in my life. 

In a week I recovered much of my strength ; but 
I was an old man. That was a great change. 

Most people age gradually and imperceptibly. 
To me old age had come of a sudden — in a night, as 
it were ; but with it, and suddenly also, the resigned 
and cheerful acquiescence, the mild serenity, that 
are its compensation and more. 

My hope, my certainty to be one with Mary some 
day — that is my haven, my heaven — a consumma- 
tion of completeness beyond which there is nothing 
to wish for or imagine. Come what else may, that is 
safe, and that is all I care for. She was able to care 
for me, and for many other things besides, and I love 
her all the more for it ; but I can only care for Tier. 

Sooner or later — a year — ten years ; it does not 
matter much. I also am beginning to disbelieve in 
the existence of time. 

That waking was the gladdest in my life — gladder 
even than the waking in my condemned cell the 
morning after my sentence of death, when another 
black shadow passed away — that of the scaffold. 

Oh, Mary ! What has she not done for me — what 
clouds has she not dispelled ! 

When night came round again I made once more, 
step by step, the journey from the Porte de la Muette 
to the Mare d’ Auteuil, with everything the same — 
the gay wedding-feast, the blue and silver courier, 
the merry guests singing 


PETER IBBETSON. 


407 


“II etait un petit navire.” 

Kothing was altered, even to the dull gray weather. 
But, oh, the difference to me ! 

I longed to play at hoitchon with the hackney 
coachmen, or at la halle au camp with my old school- 
fellows. I could have even waltzed with “ Monsieur 
Lartigue ” and ‘‘ le petit Cazal.” • 

I looked in Mere Manette’s little mirror and saw 
my worn, gray, haggard, old face again ; and liked 
it, and thought it quite good-looking. I sat down 
and rested by the fortifications as I had done the 
night before, for I was still tired, but with a most 
delicious fatigue ; my very shabbiness was agreeable 
to mQ—pauvre^ mais honnUe. A convict, a madman, 
but a prince among men — still the beloved of Mary ! 

And when at last I reached the spot 1 had always 
loved the best on earth ever since I first saw it as a 
child, I fell on my knees and wept for sheer excess 
of joy. It was mine indeed ; it belonged to me as 
no land or water had ever belonged to any man 
before. 

Mary was not there, of course ; I did not expect her. 

But, strange and incomprehensible as it seems, 
she had forgotten her gloves; she had left them 
behind her. One was on the bench, one was on the 
ground ; poor old gloves that had been mended, 
with the well-known shape of her dear hands in 
them ; every fold and crease preserved as in a mould 
— the very cast of her finger-nails ; and the scent 
of sandal- wood she and her mother had so loved. 


408 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


I laid them side by side, palms upward, on the 
bench where we had sat the night before. IN'o 
dream-wind has blown them away ; no dream-thief 
has stolen them ; there they lie still, and will lie 
till the great change comes over me, and I am one 
with their owner. 


I am there every night — in the lovely spring or 
autumn sunshine — meditating, remembering, taking 
notes— dream-notes to be learned by heart, and used 
next day for a real purpose. 

I walk round and round, or sit on the benches, or 
lie in the grass by the brink, and smoke cigarettes 
without end, and watch the old amphibious life I 
found so charming half a century ago, and find it 
charming still. 

Sometimes I dive into the forest (which has now 
been razed to the ground. Ever since 1870 there is 
an open space all round the Mare d’Auteuil. I had 
seen it since then in a dream with Mary, who went 
to Paris after the war, and made pilgrimages by 
day to all the places so dear to our hearts, and so 
changed ; and again, when the night came, with me 
for a fellow-pilgrim. It was a sad disenchantment 
for us both). 

My Mare d’Auteuil, where I spend so many 
hours, is the Mare d’Auteuil of Louis Philippe, un- 
changeable except for such shght changes as will 
occur, now and then, between the years 1839 and 
1846 : a broken bench mended, a new barrier put 


PETEE IBBETSON. 


409 


up by the high-road, a small wooden dike where 
the brink is giving w^ay. 

And the thicket beside and behind it is dark and 
dense for miles, with many tall trees and a rich, 
tangled undergrowth. 

There is a giant oak which it is difficult to find 
in that labyrinth (it now stands, for the world, 
alone in the open ; an ornament to the Auteuil 
race -course). I have often climbed it as a boy, 
with Mimsey and the rest ; I cannot climb it now, 
but I love to lie on the grass in its shade, and 
dream in my dream there, shut in on all sides by 



“l AM THERE EVERY NIGHT.” 


fragrant, impenetrable verdure ; with birds and bees 
and butterflies and dragon-flies and strange beetles 
and little field-mice with bright eyes, and lithe 
spotted snakes and lively brown squirrels and beau- 


410 


PETEK IBBETSON. 


tiful green lizards for my company. N^ow and then 
a gentle roebuck comes and feeds close by me with- 
out fear, and the mole throws up his little mound 
of earth and takes an airing. 

It is a very charming solitude. 

It amuses me to think by day, when broad awake 
in my sad English prison, and among my crazy 
peers, how this nightly umbrageous French soli- 
tude of mine, so many miles and years away, is 
now but a common, bare, wide grassy plain, over- 
looked by a gaudy, beflagged grand - stand. It is 
Sunday, let us say — and for all I know a great 
race may be going on — all Paris is there, rich and 
poor. Little red-legged soldiers, big blue -legged 
gendarmes, keep the course clear; the sun shines, 
the tricolor waves, the gay, familiar language makes 
the summer breeze musical. I dare say it is all very 
bright and animated, but the whole place rings 
with the vulgar din of the book-makers, and the 
air is full of dust and foul with the scent of rank 
tobacco, the reek of struggling French humanity ; 
and the gaunt Eiffel Tower looks down upon it all 
from the sky over Paris (so, at least, I am told) like 
a skeleton at a feast. 

Then twilight comes, and the crowds have de- 
parted ; on foot, on horseback, on bicycles and tri- 
cycles, in every kind of vehicle ; many by the cKe- 
min de fer de ceinture, the Auteuil station of which 
is close by . . . all is quiet and bare and dull. 

Then down drops the silent night like a curtain, 
and beneath its friendly cover the strange transfer- 


PETER IBBETSON. 


411 


mation effects itself quickly, and all is made ready 
for me. The grand -stand evaporates, the railway 
station melts away into thin air ; there is no more 
Eiffel Tower with its electric light! The sweet 
forest of fifty years ago rises suddenly out of the 
ground, and all the wild live things that once lived 
in it wake to their merry life again. 

A quiet deep old pond in a past French forest, 
hallowed by such memories 1 What can be more 
enchanting? Oh, soft and sweet nostalgia, so soon 
to be relieved ! 

Up springs the mellow sun, the light of other 
days, to its appointed place in the heavens — zenith, 
or east or west, according to order. A light wind 
blows from the south — everything is properly dis- 
infected, and made warm and bright and comfort- 
able — and lo ! old Peter Ibbetson appears upon the 
scene, absolute monarch of all he surveys for the 
next eight hours — one whose right there are literal- 
ly none to dispute. 

I do not encourage noisy gatherings there as a 
rule, nor by the pond; I like to keep the sweet 
place pretty much to myself; there is no selfish- 
ness in this, for I am really depriving nobody. 
Whoever comes there now, comes there nearly fif- 
ty years ago and does not know it; they must 
have all died long since. 

Sometimes it is a garde champHre in Louis Phil- 
ippe’s blue and silver, with his black pipe, his gait- 
ers, his old flint gun, and his embroidered game-bag. 
He does well in the landscape. 


413 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Sometimes it is a pair of lovers, if they are good- 
looking and well-behaved, or else the boys from 
Saindon’s school to play fly the garter — la raie. 

Sometimes it is Monsieur le Cure, peacefully con- 
ning his Hours,” as with slow and thoughtful step 
he paces round and round. I can now read his 
calm, benevolent face by the light of half a cen- 
tury’s experience of life, and have learned to love 
that still, black, meditative aspect which I found so 
antipathetic as a small boy — he is no burner alive 
of little heretics! This world is big enough for us 
both — and so is the world to come ! And he knows 
it. How, at all events! 

Sometimes even a couple of Prendergasts are 
admitted, or even three ; they are not so bad, after 
all ; they have the qualities of their faults, although 
you might not think it. 

But very often the old beloved shades arrive with 
their fishing-nets, and their high spirits, and their 
ringing Anglo-French — Charlie, and Alfred, and 
Madge, and the rest, and the grinning, barking, gy- 
rating Medor, who dives after stones. 

Oh, how it does my heart good to see and hear 
them ! 

They make me feel like a grandfather. Even 
Monsieur le Major is younger than I — his mustache 
less white than mine. He only comes to my chin ; 
but I look up to him still, and love and revere him 
as when I was a little child. 

And Dr. Seraskier ! I place myself between him 
and what he is looking at, so that he seems to be 


PETER IBBETSON. 


413 


looking straight at me ; but with a far-away look 
in his eyes, as is only natural. Presently something 
amuses him, and he smiles, and his eyes crinkle up 
as his daughter’s used to do when she was a wom- 
an, and his majestic face becomes as that of an an- 
gel, like hers. 

Uange du sourire ! 

And my gay, young, 
light-hearted father, 
with his vivacity and 
rollicking laugh and 
eternal good-humor! 

He is just like a boy 
to me now, le beau 
Pasquier I He has got 
a new sling of his own 
invention ; he pulls it 
out of his pocket, and 
slings stones high over 
the tree -tops and far 
away out of sight — to 
the joy of himself and 
everybody else — and 
does not trouble much 
as to where they will 
fall. 

My mother is young 
enough now to be my 
daughter ; it is as a daughter, a sweet, kind, lovely 
daughter, that I love her now — a happily-married 
daughter with a tall, handsome husband who yodles 



“this world is big enough 

FOR US BOTH.” 


414 


PETER IBBETSON. 


divinely and slings stones, and who has presented 
me with a grandson — heau comme le jour — for what- 
ever Peter Ibbetson may have been in his time, 
there is no gainsaying the singular comeliness of 
little Gogo Pasquier. 

And Mimsey is just a child angel! Monsieur le 
Major is infallible. 

“ Elle a toutes les intelligences de la tete et du 
coeur! Yous verrez un jour, quand §a ira mieux; 
vous verrez 1” 

That day has long come and gone ; it is easy to see 
all that now — to have the eyes of Monsieur le Major. 

Ah, poor little Mimsey, with her cropped head 
and her pale face, and long, thin arms and legs, and 
grave, kind, luminous eyes, that have not yet learned 
to smile. What she is to me ! ! ! ! 

And Madame Seraskier, in all the youthful bloom 
and splendor of her sacred beauty ! A chosen lily 
among women — the mother of Mary ! 

She sits on the old bench by the willow, close to 
her daughter’s gloves. Sometimes (a trivial and al- 
most comic detail I) she actually seems to sit ujpon 
them, to my momentary distress; but when she 
goes away, there they are still, not flattened a bit 
— the precious mould of those beautiful, generous 
hands to which I owe everything here and hereafter. 

I have not been again to my old home. I dread 
the sight of the avenue. I cannot face “ Parva sed 
Apta.” 


PETER IBBETSON. 


415 


But I have seen Mary again — seven times. 

And every time she comes she brings a book with 
her, gilt-edged and bound in green morocco like the 
Byron we read when we were children, or in red 
morocco like the Elegant Extracts out of which we 
used to translate Gray’s ‘‘Elegy,” and the “Battle 
of Hohenlinden,” and Cunningham’s “Pastorals” 
into French. 

Such is her fancy ! 

But inside these books are very different. They 
are printed in cipher, and in a language I can only 
understand in my dream. Nothing that I, or any 
one else, has ever read in any living book can ap- 
proach, for interest and importance, what I read in 
these. There are seven of them. 

I say to myself when I read them : it is perhaps 
well that I shall not remember this when I wake, 
after all ! 

For I might be indiscreet and injudicious, and ei- 
ther say too much or not enough ; and the world 
might come to a stand-still, all through me. For 
who would fardels bear, as Mary said ! No ! The 
world must be content to wait for the great guesser ! 

Thus my bps are sealed. 

All I know is this : that all will he well for us all^ 
and of such a hind that all who do not sigh for the 
moon will he well content. 


In such wise have I striven, with the best of my 
ability, to give some account of my two lives and 


416 


PETER IBBETSON. 


Mary’s. We have lived three lives between us — ■ 
three lives in one. 

It has been a happy task, however poorly per- 
formed, and all the conditions of its performance 
have been singularly happy also. 

A cell in a criminal lunatic asylum ! That does 
not sound like a bower in the Elysian Fields ! It is, 
and has been for me. 

Besides the sun that lights and warms my inner 
life, I have been treated with a kindness and sym- 
pathy and consideration by everybody here, from 
the governor downward, that fills me with unspeak- 
able gratitude. 

Most especially do I feel grateful to my good 
friends, the doctor, the chaplain, and the priest — 
best and kindest of men — each of whom has made 
up his mind about everything in heaven and earth 
and below, and each in a contrary sense to the two 
others ! 

There is but one thing they are neither of them 
quite cocksure about, and that is whether I am mad 
or sane. 

And there is one thing — the only one on which 
they are agreed ; namely, that, mad or sane, I am a 
great undiscovered genius ! 

My little sketches, plain or colored, fill them with 
admiration and ecstasy. Such boldness and facility 
and execution, such an overwhelming fertility in 
the choice of subjects, such singular realism in the 
conception and rendering of past scenes, historical 
and otherwise, such astounding knowledge of archi- 


PETER IBBETSON. 


417 


lecture, character, costume, and what not; such 
local color — it is all as if I had really been there to 
see ! 

I have the greatest difficulty in keeping my fame 
from spreading beyond the walls of the asylum. 
My modesty is as great as my talent ! 

hJ’o, I do not wish this great genius to be discov- 
ered just yet. It must all go to help and illustrate 
and adorn the work of a much greater genius, from 
which it has drawn every inspiration it ever had. 

It is a splendid and delightful task I have before 
me : to unravel and translate and put in order these 
voluminous and hastily - penned reminiscences of 
Mary’s, all of them written in the cipher we invent- 
ed together in our dream — a very transparent cipher 
when once you have got the key ! 

It wiU take five years at least, and I think that, 
without presumption, I can count on that, strong 
and active as I feel, and still so far from the age of 
the Psalmist. 

First of aU, I intend 


Note , — rllere ends my poor cousin’s memoir. He 
was found dead from effusion of blood on the brain, 
with his pen still in his hand, and his head bowed 
down on his unfinished manuscript, on the margin 
of which he had just sketched a small boy wheeling 
a toy wheelbarrow full of stones from one open door 
to another. One door is labelled Passe, the other 
Avenir. 

27 


418 


PETER IBBETSON. 


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